Why Are Foreign Companies Investing in North American Pulp and Paper?, Paper360º September/October 2019

Foreign ownership of North American pulp and paper mills has more than doubled since 2007. While the biggest share in ownership in 2007 was held by Swedish and South African parent companies (numbers one and two respectively), today Indonesia is the largest investor in North America, followed by Sweden (Fig. 1).

With the exception of Brazil and Chile, investments in production sites in North America are held by companies from all major pulp and paper supply hubs around the world (Fig. 2), and these investments have been growing well-aligned with market growth patterns across all grades, from specialties and packaging to tissue and market pulp (Fig. 3).

Foreign-owned mills enjoy over 15 percent capacity share in the market pulp supply in North America, 10 percent in tissue, and more than 20 percent in specialties, for an average of about 10 percent of total North American pulp and paper production overall. While there is also a meaningful share of foreign-owned production in the declining printing and writing segment, some of these machines are already committed to be converted to produce more attractive grades like containerboard (Fig. 4).

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