Weekly

Fedrigoni Group to exit office paper business

8 October 2024

Italy's Fedrigoni Group has announced plans to exit the office paper business at a meeting held on 3 October with employee representatives. This means that the company will shut down parts of its Fabriano mill as well as the nearby mill in Rocchetta, both located in the eastern Italian region of Marche.

Fedrigoni reported that it would discontinue office paper production in Fabriano. This will have implications for the maintenance, warehousing and transport operations at the site, which will also be closed. The La Rocchetta mill is home to a slitting centre and will close its doors entirely.

Altogether, the closures will affect 195 workers. Fedrigoni stressed that it would do all it could to minimise the number of redundancies. The company will hold additional meetings with trade union officials in the course of this week to discuss possible options.

The activities earmarked for closure are part of Giano, a Fedrigoni subsidiary founded in November 2022 for the production and distribution of office paper. Giano will cease all production and distribution activities on 1 January 2025, Marco Nespolo, CEO of the Fedrigoni Group, announced.

Fedrigoni said that the office paper business had been in an irreversible crisis for years. The market was dominated by large international companies that also had to close capacity in recent years as demand had cooled, it added. Fedrigoni noted that it had spent two years looking for partners willing to invest in Giano. It had also considered selling the entire Fabriano brand business. Yet the company was unable to find an investor for this option, either, leading it to ultimately decide to part ways with its office paper operations. Fedrigoni now intends to focus on its production of speciality paper for packaging and creative communications, including paper for art and design.

All of the group’s other activities in the Marche region, namely its mills in Pioraco, Castelraimondo and Sassoferrato, are not affected by the closures. The firm stated that it had no intention at all to leave the region. "We will continue to invest in developing our production and converting sites in this region and in the historic Fabriano brand,” the company remarked. With its drawing and art paper, stationery and security paper operations, Fabriano is to remain an important and strategic part of the group.

Fedrigoni manufactures speciality paper for luxury packaging, creative communications and self-adhesive materials. The group operates 80 facilities, including production plants, slitting centres and distribution sites, in 29 countries and employs 6,000 people around the globe.

Source: Euwid