The future of Fibre Excellence now depends as much on the court as on the public authorities. Pictured above: Fibre Excellence pulp mill in Tarascon, France.
PaperAge editor's note: The following excerpt is from an article on PrintIndustry.news.
June 2, 2026 - In the absence of an identified buyer, Fibre Excellence is attempting to take over its activities itself. The pulp producer, which operates two sites in Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhone) and Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne), submitted an offer to the Commercial Court on June 1 to ensure the continuity of its industrial and forestry sites, which have been in receivership since last April. The project concerns all the group's assets, including Chapelle Darblay in Seine-Maritime closed since 2019 by UPM and all its 700-strong workforce.
Jean-François Guillot, Chairman and CEO of Fibre Excellence, defends an approach driven by the company's teams: "Management and I are backing this takeover offer because we firmly believe in the future of our sites."
However, the submission of the offer does not solve the Group's economic equation. Management is conditioning its project on three decisions expected from the French government before June 17.
The first concerns the most thorny issue in the dossier: the feed-in tariff for electricity generated at Fibre Excellence sites. The group is calling for a mechanism that takes into account the cost of biomass and covers actual production costs.
The second concerns wood supply. Fibre Excellence intends to strengthen its partnership with the Office National des Forets to gradually secure 25% of its wood requirements from French public forests.
Finally, the group is asking for ...
The full article is available at PrintIndustry.news: In the absence of a candidate, Fibre Excellence submits its own takeover offer
SOURCE: PrintIndustry.news
PaperAge editor's note: Fibre Excellence has two pulp mills in France: One is located in Saint-Gaudens with the capacity to produce about 280,000 tonnes per year, and the other is in Tarascon with the capacity to produce about 250,000 tonnes per year. The range of pulp produced by the mills include: bleached hardwood kraft pulp, bleached softwood kraft pulp, and unbleached softwood kraft pulp.