Dec 01, 2010. /Lesprom Network/. Sveaskog’s Board of Directors and CEO Gunnar Olofsson have agreed that the time is right for a change of CEO in the company. Gunnar Olofsson will stay on as CEO until the Annual General Meeting in April 2011 and the Board will now start recruitment of his successor, company said in a statement received by Lesprom Network. Gunnar Olofsson was assigned by the Board to make Sveaskog a pure-play forest-owning company. With the board mill in Frövi sold and sawmill company Setra Group on the market, this assignment is now nearing completion. Furthermore in June 2010 the government and parliament decided on new directives relating to Sveaskog’s assignment and role in the market. Against this background and after ten successful years, it is natural for Gunnar Olofsson to end his assignment and for the Board to recruit a successor. Olofsson will stay on as CEO until the company’s Annual General Meeting in April 2011. “Gunnar Olofsson has done an excellent job as CEO,” says Board Chairman, Göran Persson. “He has developed and strengthened Sveaskog as a forest-owning company. The company is well run and shows good profitability at the same time as meeting high aims for the environment and nature conservation. I appreciate that Gunnar Olofsson is prepared to stay on as CEO until the AGM in April. This will give the Board a reasonable time to plan for the change of CEO,” says Persson. “I have worked at Sveaskog for ten years and am now ready to take on new assignments,” says Gunnar Olofsson. “My strength is leading operations during a process of change and I have been able to do this at Sveaskog. I am proud, together with the company’s 700 skilled and motivated employees and the Board, to have developed Sveaskog into the leading forest company we are today. It feels as if the time is right for me to move on in a new career,” says Olofsson. Sveaskog is Sweden's largest forest owner and leading supplier of timber, pulpwood and biofuel.