Papresa for the activity of its Errenteria factory due to the lack of raw material due to the transport strike | Economy

The Papresa paper mill, located in Errenteria (Guipuzkoa) and with a centuries-old tradition of manufacturing newsprint, has announced that it will stop production at its factory as a result of the lack of raw material caused by the transport strike. The company, which in 2019 had a turnover of 140 million euros, has lamented in a statement that this labor conflict is added and “further aggravates the dramatic situation that the industry is going through as a result of the energy crisis.” For this reason, he has called for “urgent measures to avoid an industrial and economic collapse and to be able to resume normal activity as soon as possible”.

Founded in 1896, Papresa belongs, since October 2020, to the German industrial investment fund Quantum Capital Partners (QCP), which acquired the company from the American venture capital fund KKR, which had been managing it for six years. At that time, he put Miguel Sánchez in charge, a manager related to the German fund QCP who had presided over the transformation of the Barcelona paper company Cartonboard until 2018.

The company has three machines in its factory, employs 222 workers and is at the end of a conversion process towards packaging: the drop in newspaper sales due to the new reading media had been transformed into an opportunity to manufacture brown paper for boxes and bags of growing e-commerce. Thus, a machine is newsprint (newsletter) and the other two machines are for the production of packaging paper (packaging). The objective of the reorientation of the paper mill business was to increase turnover in 2022 by between 30% and 35%, in line with the growth in production capacity. The company anticipated that the production capacity with the two paper machines packaging at full capacity it will be around 200,000 tons per year. Some figures that were key to achieving future sales and profit targets. But the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis it has caused and now the transport strike have disrupted the company’s plans.