Ahlstrom Corporation has announced that the very challenging market conditions that impacted its business in the fourth quarter of 2008 have prevailed in the beginning of this year. Consequently, the demand pattern for most of Ahlstrom’s products has continued to weaken in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

Ahlstrom anticipated the market environment to be very challenging in 2009 with a very short-term visibility of the demand for Ahlstrom products. The company announced that the demand would vary significantly by product line and depending on the general development of the customer industries.

Ahlstrom will publish its interim report for January-March 2009 on April 29, 2009.

In other news, Ahlstrom has concluded negotiations on temporary layoffs with the personnel of its head office and sales office in Helsinki, Finland. The negotiations affected the entire staff of these units, a total of 76 people.

As a result of the negotiations, the whole personnel of the head office and the Helsinki sales office will be temporarily laid off for one month gradually between April and December 2009. The members of Ahlstrom’s Corporate Executive Team (CET) based in Helsinki have decided to voluntarily give up part of their salary accordingly, although their obligation to work remains unchanged.

Ahlstrom’s CET members working in other countries will also participate in the adjustment program with similar type of voluntary measures.