While until now newsprint and magazine paper accounted for 90% of the production of Slovenian paper mill Vipap Videm Krško, its share will fall by half within three years. As a part of the already started restructuring, the new Czech owner RIDG Holding wants to reorient the company more towards the production of food packaging paper. It invests more than a quarter of a billion Czech crowns in the modern technologies that will enable it.
"The correctness of the new strategy with a greater emphasis on food packaging paper was confirmed during the coronavirus crisis, when this segment maintained stable market demand," describes Petr Domin, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Vipap Videm Krško.
RIDG Holding took over Slovenian paper mill last year and the company under its leadership ended the calendar year with a significantly positive operating profit EBITDA of Euro 7 million and a positive cash flow. The new owner, in addition to redesigning the company's processes, also immediately started investing in technology modernization and employees development, in order to make the company more flexible.
“We see the acquisition of Vipap Videm Krško paper mill as a strategic and long-term matter. That´s why we´ve decided to make structural changes and invest in modern technologies, that will help the company respond better to market development and provide it enough opportunities for sustainable growth,” says Pavel Svoreň, Executive Director of the Portiva Investment Group, which together with the IPIDC Group, the Investment Club and the KRPA Holding Group forms a consortium of RIDG Holding.
One of the key innovations in Vipap paper mill is the expansion of the product range. In addition to newsprint, magazines and advertising leaflets, currently also paper bags, carrier bags and laminated paper is being added. This segment of production is on the rise due to the fact that a number of European countries have decided to replace the plastic packaging with paper. In addition, new technologies will make it possible to bring to the market the food packaging, that is durable and at the same time fully recyclable.
According to him, the company also takes advantage of the opportunity to accelerate structural changes, to speed up the setting up of new processes and even more intensively focuses on a team building and the development of key employees. All this despite the fact, that the shortage of recycled paper, which is one of the main raw materials for production, has gradually started in Europe.
"What´s not produced and not sold cannot be later collected and recycled. From one extreme, when during January and February it was not even worthy for collectors to carry paper to buyers due to its low price, the market shifted to the opposite situation due to fears of coronavirus infection, where the price rose sharply and recycled paper was temporarily unavailable," describes Domin, according to which the market situation has already improved and the prices and availability of recycled paper are gradually stabilizing. The director of the paper mill expresses a slight optimism about the future development and reckons, that the next four weeks should show the real condition of the market.
Management of Vipap Videm Krško now estimates that in the event of a favorable development, the company could return to pre-crisis level at the end of this year. Completion of the restructuring, which is to direct the paper mill towards long-term competitiveness and growth, is planned for the turn of 2021 and 2022.
