As announced at the beginning of the year, the La Rochette paper mill, which belonged to the Italian Reno de Medici, is now part of the german investment holding Mutares . Pierre-Yves Guégan, the president of the site newly renamed La Rochette Cartonboard explains the plans for this 300-employee paper mill in Valgelon-La Rochette in Savoie.
GraphiLine: Last February, Mutares announced the acquisition of the La Rochette paper mill. Is the sale now effective?
Pierre-Yves Guégan: The site has been part of Mutares since May 1st. La Rochette was previously part of Reno De Medici (RDM).
What are your plans in terms of products for the virgin fiber paper site?
We are in continuity, but better! Our strategy is to maintain and strengthen the profitability achieved in 2020. La Rochette has a very solid customer portfolio: relationships with certain customers and suppliers have been in place for over 20 years. We remain focused on virgin fiber-based products and still on pharmaceutical and food packaging.
What is your plan to "strengthen profitability"?
We have several areas of improvement: developing sales and increasing production capacity.
How will you increase the turnover of La Rochette?
We are going to develop the customer panel in new geographical markets. We are very strong in France, very present in Italy, but there are other countries in which we think we can develop.
What about production capacity?
We have potential for capacity improvements. At present, the market is extremely strong: demand is greater than supply. We believe that we will be able to increase productivity by around 10% in the short term, particularly through investments in equipment.
Italian paper maker Reno De Medici said the site needed "significant additional investments" . Is this your analysis?
Yes, absolutely. They will be carried out. Over the year 2021, the investments will represent about 10 million.
A new silo has already been installed in mid-May to ensure the reprocessing of our water.
Then, in August, a major investment will be made in one of our two paper machines (machine 3) to improve product quality and productivity. Part of the roofs will also be renovated.
Then, several other investments of several million euros each will take place in 2022, including the installation of a turbine that will allow us to sell our energy. This turbine will be effective in 2023.
And additional investments are being identified.
Will you be hiring people?
La Rochette currently has 306 employees, and yes we are in a development phase. We have agreed with RDM that he will be in charge of the commercial part of the business until the end of the year. We are therefore recruiting a sales manager and his team. The figures will be determined with this new sales manager.
In addition to the development of turnover and production capacity, we have a third important element for us: social development. We have already started to set up communication with employees and representatives. We want to be as transparent as possible with the employees and share the ambition.
Today you have two companies in the paperboard industry, La Rochette and Cenpa. And as you explained to us, Mutares works on two development axes by internal and external growth. What about this second part?
Further discussions between Mutares and myself have already taken place concerning future acquisitions that could be made within the paper business to make it even more coherent with the customers.
