Finnish fibre-based products manufacturing company Ahlstrom has announced it has received a binding offer from German investment company Accursia Capital for the acquisition of its Stenay plant.

Ahlstrom’s facility, which is located in Stenay, a commune in Meuse, France, specialises in the production of one-side-coated speciality papers for specific uses within the food and non-food sectors.

Following this announcement, the potential deal with Accursia is now subject to consultation with employee representatives.

Accursia CEO Martin Scheiblegger said: “We are looking forward to starting the development of the plant jointly with the employees and the local management to establish Stenay as a strong player in the highly competitive paper-based packaging market.

“With CENPA, Accursia already has a proven track record in an adjacent segment of the industry. We are confident that with Accursia’s support the plant will achieve a turnaround in a similar fashion as CENPA did over the last two years.”

The offer comes after Ahlstrom completed an extensive process of identifying potential buyers for its Stenay facility.

Earlier in March this year, the company also launched a consultation process with its employee representatives working at the Stenay facility to explore the possibility of divesting the plant.

Ahlstrom was also considering closure of the facility if it failed to find a suitable buyer.

The company said it worked closely with various local economic and political stakeholders to find a buyer for its plant.

At the time of launching the consultation process, the company said that its decision to sell the Stenay plant was taken after it failed to find solutions to support and continue operations at the site.

The facility has an annual production capacity of 55,000 tons of speciality papers and currently hires 120 employees.

The site also has its own research and development facility and is equipped to deliver customer-centric solutions.