Van As said the figures were reasonably robust given the state of the market, and despite it being a very difficult year.
He added that the fall in sales was mainly due to the closures of Sappi’s Mobile mill in the US and Transcript mill in the UK.
Despite the market still being tough, van As said there were signs that advertising was at last recovering, and that sales were beginning to grow again.
“Spending on print advertising has been affected more than electronic media, and our part of that business has suffered badly,” he said.
Fine paper sales fell 17% in North America to £696m, while sales in Europe were down 2.1% to just over £1bn.
Van As said next year’s economic circumstances were unclear at this stage. “We think de-stocking at consumer level is over, and that pulp prices will start to move upwards towards the second half of next year.”
He also said that when the board had an announcement to make regarding his successor they would make it, despite the process taking longer than had been expected.
Story by Andy Scott
Picture: Van As (left) - still no successor
