1/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288.

Stora Enso Oyj is a Finnish pulp and paper manufacturer, formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. It is headquartered in Helsinki, and it has approximately 29,000 employees. In 2002 it was the fifth largest pulp and paper manufacturer in terms of revenue and in 2005 it was the world's largest pulp and paper manufacturer in terms of production capacity, it is now second behind International Paper. Finnish state is the biggest owner in the company. The Wallenberg family through their foundation asset management company FAM is the second biggest shareholder in the company.

History[link]

Stora Enso was formed by the merger of Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora and Finnish forestry products company Enso-Gutzeit Oy in 1998. In line with this, Stora Enso expanded its operations by acquiring wood products businesses and bought paper merchant businesses in Europe. In 2000 the company bought Consolidated Papers in North America. Stora Enso also slowly expanded its operations in South America, Asia and Russia.

In recent years the company has gone through heavy restructuring. The North American operations were divested in 2007 to NewPage Corporation. Stora Enso has sold and closed down some of its mills in Finland, Sweden and Germany.

History of Stora[link]

The Swedish copper mining company Stora Kopparberg ("great copper mountain") in Falun was granted a charter from King Magnus IV of Sweden in 1347, although the first share in the company (granting the Bishop of Västerås 12.5% ownership) dates from 1288. Some claim this to be the oldest existing corporation or limited liability company in the world.^[2]

Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags AB was incorporated as a modern shareholder company in 1862. Towards the end of the 19th century, it diversified from copper mining and entered pulp and paper production. In 1984 it shortened its name to Stora AB. The copper mine closed down in 1992. In 1998, it merged with Enso to form Stora Enso.

In 1997, the year before the merger, Stora had 20,400 employees and a turnover of 44.5 billion SEK. The company owned 2.3 million hectares of forest of which 1.6 million hectares (an area larger than Connecticut) in Sweden and the rest in Canada, Portugal and Brazil. It also produced 7.5 TWh of mostly hydroelectric power.

History of Enso[link]

Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, designed by Alvar Aalto, 1962

Enso-Gutzeit Oy was founded in the 19th century in Norway as W. Gutzeit & Co. by Wilhelm Gutzeit, the half-brother of industrialist Benjamin Wegner. His son Hans Gutzeit moved the company to Finland, where it became the largest forestry company in the country.

Enso-Gutzeit Osakeyhtiö bought A. Ahlström Osakeyhtiö’s forest industries at Varkaus in December 1986. In 1995 a decision was made to merge two state owned forest giants together. The merger materialized next year when Enso-Gutzeit Oy and North Finland based Veitsiluoto Oy formed Enso Oy.

In 2000, the company acquired the U.S. company Consolidated Paper. In the same year, Stora Enso and AssiDomän formed a joint company, Billerud AB, to produce packaging paper.

South America[link]

Veracel is a joint venture of Stora Enso and Aracruz in Brazil.

See also[link]

• Great Copper Mountain
• Ahlstrom
• Enso (town)
• List of Finnish companies
• List of oldest companies
• List of Swedish companies
• Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget
• UPM-Kymmene

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Stora Enso

• Official website
• Yahoo! - Stora Enso Oyj Company Profile

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