The management of the Fibre Excellence (FE) group submitted a takeover bid to the Toulouse Commercial Court on June 1. The company has been under court-ordered receivership since April 27. “Having received no external offers to date, the company has decided to commit itself both to its employees and to the long-term viability of the wood and paper industry, as well as to ensuring France’s sovereignty over a product as essential as pulp. This offer aims to build a sustainable solution for the operations of all its industrial and forestry entities. Convinced of the future of combined pulp and power production in France, management aims to ensure the profitability necessary to preserve the group, which contributes to the local economy, employs nearly 700 people, and generates some 10,000 indirect jobs in the forestry-wood-paper sector,” explains the press release received this afternoon.
To this end, the plan involves creating a new entity with the objective of acquiring all assets and employees. This structure would be based on a shareholders’ agreement between private and public entities, including the Occitanie and Sud regions. While the submitted offer already includes several letters of intent from investors, management is actively continuing its work to consolidate and finalize this shareholders’ agreement.
To be finalized, this offer also remains conditional upon the conclusion, by June 17 at the latest (the date of a new hearing at the Commercial Court as indicated on April 27), of agreements with the State, notably concerning three essential conditions precedent to the sustainable restoration of the group’s competitiveness. Firstly, the adjustment of the electricity buyback rate, with a mechanism that takes into account the price of biomass and allows for the coverage of the actual costs of electricity production. Secondly, the establishment of a strengthened partnership with the French National Forestry Office (ONF) to progressively secure 25% of French public timber supplies. Finally, the reintegration of the Saint-Gaudens plant into the European CO2 emissions trading system.
In this very demanding context, management emphasizes that the project’s success also remains contingent upon the finalization, by July 10 at the latest, of additional financial commitments from private investors.
“Management and I are putting forward this takeover bid because we firmly believe in the future of our sites,” stated Jean-François Guillot, CEO of Fibre Excellence (pictured). “We are working hand in hand with all the teams, fully aware of the road ahead. Nothing is guaranteed: to ensure the long-term viability of the business, the key is to secure the fundamentals of our competitiveness in France. Renewable electricity valued at its actual production costs, securing at least 25% of public wood supplies, and reintegration into the European CO2 quota system are essential drivers of competitiveness for the economic viability of our combined pulp/electricity business. We remain convinced that it is still possible to maintain this industry in France, an industry that forms the basis of a multitude of key everyday products. It is with this proactive, clear-sighted, and determined approach that we are pursuing this project in order to preserve our jobs, our territories, and industrial sovereignty over an essential strategic resource that it would be disastrous to have to import entirely.”
V. L.
Photo/V.L
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