In the first quarter of 2018, Ahlstrom-Munksjö reported net sales of €572.4 million ($700.5 million), an increase of 1%. In constant currency, growth was 5.9%, driven by higher selling prices.

Hans Sohlström, president and CEO of Ahlstrom-Munksjö as of April 16, 2018, comments: “We are making good progress towards our strategic priorities and financial targets. We have made decisions on four separate organic growth investments to improve our financial performance and reduce our environmental impact.

“At the same time, our three ongoing strategic investment projects, targeting at profitable growth, are proceeding well. The machine rebuild for abrasive backings and decor papers in Arches, France was completed during the first quarter. We are also completing the new saturation line investment for filtration material in Madisonville, the U.S., and the new parchmentizer line investment in Saint Severin, France. All three projects increase our capacity and respond to growing customer demand.”

Simultaneously the company is proceeding well ahead of schedule in delivering the merger related synergy benefits. In addition to the earlier announced synergies of above €40 million ($49 million), Ahlstrom-Munksjö has continued the work and identified further synergies and cost reducing initiatives with an overall profit improvement impact of €10 million ($12.2 million) annually to be reached by the end of Q1 in 2019.