The £1.26bn deal, which was announced in September 2007 and is expected to complete by the first quarter of 2008, will give Stora Enso £760m ($1.5bn) in cash, a £101m note and close to a 20% stake in the newly formed holding company, NewPage Group.

NewPage now operates 12 paper mills and 26 paper machines across the US and Canada, producing 4.3m tonnes of coated paper, 920,000 tonnes of uncoated paper, 300,000 tonnes of specialty paper and 3.2m tonnes of pulp, making it the largest producer of coated paper in the US.