Jul 13, 2006. /Lesprom Network/. Sonae Indústria, SGPS, SA is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement to acquire the French company Darbo SAS, owner of a particleboard plant in Linxe, France, from the Spanish based group, Finsa. The plant’s installed particleboard production capacity is 450 thousand cubic meters in addition to 7 million square meters of melamine facing capacity. The Darbo plant is located in the South West of France, close to the Spanish border and sells approximately 50% of its output to Spain. Carlos Bianchi de Aguiar, CEO of Sonae Indústria stated: “The deal we are announcing today further reinforces our strategic commitment to sustaining market share and profitability in the Iberian market. Although the Darbo plant is located in France, from a commercial and logistics perspective, it is naturally closer to Iberia and will therefore be integrated in our Iberian management organization”. Darbo generated turnover of Euro 55 million in 2005 and achieved EBITDA breakeven in second quarter 2006. Sonae Indústria anticipates that with the integration, it will be able to enhance the plant’s profitability to levels closer to that of its other Iberian assets. The consideration to be paid for the company is Euro 30 million. The deal announced on July 12 is subject to clearance by the competent competition authorities. Sonae Indústria is the most important Portuguese group of companies manufacturing wood based products. The products range includes: particleboard; MDF; hardboard; OSB; production and sales of value added products and services - components, solutions and systems - for the furniture, building, decoration and DIY industries. On 31 December 2004, Sonae Indústria's workforce numbered 6 044 in 11 countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, UK, Canada, Brazil, Holland, Switzerland, South Africa and Argentina. In 2004, Sonae Indústria's consolidated turnover totalled Euro 1.6 billion.