Stora Enso signs €2.5 billion credit facility

Stora Enso, the Finnish-based global wood-based products group, has signed a new €2.5 billion revolving credit facility agreement with a group of 21 banks.

The company is currently enjoying a period of solid financial results, which leads a number of analysts to believe that at least some of the financing will be used to further expand and improve the company's existing operations.

The company says that the credit facility, which has a maturity of five years, "is for general corporate purposes including the refinancing of existing syndicated facilities amounting to €1.6 billion"​.

Originally the syndication was significantly oversubscribed and the facility size was increased from €2.0 billion to €2.5 billion.

Mandated Lead Arrangers for the transaction are ABN Amro Bank, Barclays Capital, Crédit Agricole Indosuez and Nordea. Banks were invited to join the facility as Arrangers (€150 million), Senior Lead Managers (€75 million) and Lead Managers (€50 million).

Last year, the company announced several projects to update and expand existing production facilities. These included updating paper production facilities in the US, Sweden and France, as well as a number of projects to invest in the upgrade of production facilities in the home market of Finland.

Last month the company also announced a credit facility of €240m agreed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to develop facilities in Central and Eastern Europe.

Outside of Europe, the company has also been investing in China, where it has undertaken a number of projects aimed at increasing the production of sustainable wood products.

Stora Enso has a major involvement with the food and drinks industry, supplying a significant amount of paper-based products for packaging. It also has its own packaging European-based division which deals primarily with the food and drinks industry.