News Editor's comment

OK, so I was a bit premature last month with my predictions about the Spicers sale to Unipapel. I was just writing that things look all set to be finalised in the next few days when news broke that the EU competition authorities have put back their provisional deadline for approval by a couple of weeks to 20 December. Apparently, they need more time to study ‘commitments’ that Unipapel has made.

What these commitments are hasn’t been specified and Unipapel is saying that this is nothing unusual. It would be a surprise if they revolve around competition issues; Unipapel does have a 52% share of the EOS market in Spain, but that came about due to the acquisition of Adimpo so nothing changes by acquiring Spicers. It seems more likely there could be issues regarding works councils negotiations and job guarantees following the acquisition.

Any further delay, of course, has a knock-on effect on the spin-off of the UK & Ireland operations which is dependent on the original sale of the whole of Spicers.

Hopefully, in my next News Editor’s comment I’ll be able to speak about “Unipapel’s recent acquisition of Spicers”!

Wishing you all a happy end of year holiday season and a prosperous 2012.

Andy braithwaite, News Editor

Keywords: Spicers, Unipapel, acquisition