The negotiations, which the company said are a result of prolonged weak profitability, will involve xapproximately 360 employees and may lead to a reduction of up to 215 employees.

The negotiations are expected to last at least six weeks. If the plan is implemented, production at Tako mill would end in 2025.

The aim of the change negotiations at the Kyro mill is to improve the profitability of the mill and safeguard its operational conditions.

Any decisions on personnel reductions and mill closure will only be taken after the change negotiations have been concluded.

In recent years, the production of folding boxboard at the Tako and Kyro mills has remained well below capacity due to the market situation, and the mills have had to implement several temporary layoffs.

Due to the weak market situation and rapidly rising costs, Metsä Board said both mills have been loss-making in 2023 and 2024.

The cost competitiveness of Tako board mill is particularly weakened by its high energy costs and the small size of its production lines, the business added, while the development of the mill is limited by its location in the centre of the city of Tampere.

The possible closure of Tako board mill would have no impact on customer deliveries, as Metsä Board’s overall capacity for folding boxboard production is sufficient to meet current demand, it said.

Metsä Board has estimated that the planned measures would improve the company's comparable EBITDA by approximately €30m (£25m) per year.

If implemented, the measures would lead to a write-down of assets of approximately €30m. The one-off costs related to possible redundancies and restructuring would be specified later. Items related to write-down and other costs would be recognised in the first quarter 2025 operating result as an item affecting comparability.

The Tako mill has two folding boxboard machines with annual production capacities of 70,000 and 140,000 tonnes.

This represents approximately 13% of the company’s current annual production capacity of approximately 1.6 million tonnes of folding boxboard.

CEO Mika Joukio said the planned measures, if implemented, “would be extremely tough for us”.

“Our employees at our Pirkanmaa [Tampere Region] mills are highly skilled and have shown a lot of flexibility in the difficult market situation of recent years.

“However, we need to consider alternatives to improve our competitiveness and profitability. We currently have a number of ongoing and planned investments to improve the competitiveness of our mills and products, which will require capital and a strong financial position in the coming years.”

Metsä Board’s 2023 sales totalled €1.9bn, and the company has around 2,300 employees.

The business is part of Metsä Group, whose parent company Metsäliitto Cooperative is owned by more than 90,000 Finnish forest owners. The sales of the whole Metsä Group in 2023 were €6.1bn.