Georgia-Pacific sells EU nonwovens division for €185 million

Steinfurt/ Munich — Jones Day is advi­sing Geor­­gia-Paci­­fic LLC (“GP”) in connec­tion with the sale of its Euro­pean nonwo­vens busi­ness to a subsi­diary of P.H. Glat­fel­ter Company (“Glat­fel­ter”) for US$185 million. The tran­sac­tion includes GP’s nonwo­vens produc­tion in Stein­furt, North Rhine-West­­pha­­lia, and sales offices in France and Italy. The tran­sac­tion invol­ves the sale of shares in certain GP subsi­dia­ries to a subsi­diary of Glat­fel­ter and is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2018, subject to regu­la­tory approval.

Head­quar­te­red in Atlanta and employ­ing appro­xi­m­ately 35,000 people world­wide, GP is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of nonwo­ven fabrics for the produc­tion of napkins, baby wipes, toile­tries, cosme­tics, and clea­ning and wet wipes. The company employs around 220 people in Stein­furt. Glat­fel­ter was foun­ded in Penn­syl­va­nia in 1864 and employs appro­xi­m­ately 4,200 people at 13 manu­fac­tu­ring loca­ti­ons in North America, Europe and Asia. The company produ­ces specialty papers and fiber materials.

Advi­sor Geor­­gia-Paci­­fic LLC: Jones Day
The team was led in Europe by Maxi­mi­lian Krause and Stefan Schnei­der (both M&A — Munich) and in the US by Troy Lewis and Bobby Cardone (both M&A — Dallas).

The Jones Day team included: Markus Ledwina and Moritz Rich­ter (both M&A — Munich), Markus Hamann (Public Law and Regu­la­tion — Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Fulda (Intellec­tual Property — Munich), Dr. Markus Kappen­ha­gen (Labor Law — Düssel­dorf), Chris­tian Tren­kel (Real Estate — Munich), Dr. Klaus Herken­roth and Oliver Staatz (both Tax — Frank­furt), Michael Walra­ven (M&A — Dallas), Jean-Gabriel Griboul and Alex­andre Wibaux (both Private Equity — Paris), Fabri­zio Faina, Andrea Cesana, Mari­anna Consiglio and Patri­zia Pedretti (all M&A — Milan), Tom Briggs and Rob Latta (both Intellec­tual Property — San Diego), Jean-Michel Bobillo (Employ­ment — Paris), Andrew Eisen­berg (Tax — Washing­ton), Kelly Rubin (Tax — Dallas).

Advi­sors to P.H. Glat­fel­ter Company: Shear­man & Ster­ling LLP
Clare O’Brien, Daniel Lito­witz (both Part­ners, M&A — New York), Andreas Piepers (M&A — New York), Sven Opper­mann, Phil­ipp Jaspers (both M&A — Frank­furt), Ethan Harris, Ryan Au (both Tax — Washing­ton, DC), Anders Kraft, Astrid Mayer (both Tax — Frank­furt), Jordan Altman and Benja­min Peter­sen (both Intellec­tual Property — New York).

Stockum & Part­ner: Dr. Rainer Thum, Bene­dikt Grae­fen­stein (both Labor Law — Frankfurt).

This mandate again unders­cores Jones Day’s strength in cross-border tran­sac­tions. In the last three months alone, the Jones Day team has attrac­ted atten­tion with three other signi­fi­cant deals: advi­sing PAG Asia Capi­tal as co-inves­­tor of KSS on the US$ 1.6 billion acqui­si­tion of Takata, Proc­ter & Gamble on the € 3.4 billion acqui­si­tion of Merck’s global consu­mer health divi­sion, or Plas­tic Omnium on the majo­rity acqui­si­tion of HBPO Group (enter­prise value: € 350 million).

About Jones Day
Jones Day is one of the world’s best and most diver­si­fied commer­cial law firms and has been reco­gni­zed for years as the most client-focu­­sed firm. Jones Day advi­ses and repres­ents more than half of the DAX 30 compa­nies and has been the number one firm by number of M&A deals comple­ted world­wide without inter­rup­tion since 2000 (Thom­son and Bloom­berg). The firm employs more than 2,500 lawy­ers in 43 busi­ness and finan­cial centers world­wide — inclu­ding about 600 in Europe and 200 in Asia. In Germany, the firm is repre­sen­ted by more than 100 profes­sio­nals in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt and Munich.