Paper Supplier Raises Prices, Again

M-Real to hike magazine papers in early 2009.

By Jason Fell
11/26/2008

European paper supplier M-Real today said it will raise prices for coated fine and coated magazine papers by 8 percent starting in early 2009.

Earlier this year, the company increased prices for its U.S. market coated magazine papers by $60 per ton and its U.K. magazine papers by about $80 per ton.

With mounting production costs, CEO Mikko Helander has called for continued price increases more than once this year. “There is a definite need to increase the prices for all paper and paperboard products, and we will do everything we can to achieve the necessary increases,” he said in the company’s first half financial report.

This fall, M-Real agreed to sell its graphic paper business and four of its European paper mills to Sappi Fine Paper North America parent Sappi Limited for $1.1 billion.

M-Real isn’t the only paper company to raise prices in 2008. Verso Paper and NewPage Corporation also increased prices this year.