Stora Enso Oyj (, ) is a Finnish–Swedishpulp 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 46,000 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. The Finnish State is the biggest shareholder in the company.
Stora was, by one count, the oldest existing corporation or limited liability company in the world. Originally known as Stora Kopparberg, it was granted a charter from King Magnus IV of Sweden in 1347. The first share in the company is however dated already in 1288 and mining in the mountain had started possibly much earlier.
Enso
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.
Encyclopedia
top
