GSO, the biggest shareholder in embattled paper manufacturer Norske Skog, wants to dump three directors from the eight person board, and agree new refinancing proposals. Norske Skog is currently dealing with what has become a massive and growing debt, which now stands at €1bn, and last month announced it was seeking to restructure its loans. However this has not been enough to satisfy GSO, which now owns 11 per cent of the company, and has called for an extraordinary general meeting to take place by January 7.

Challenging business: Norske Skog’s Boyer mill

The company has been hit with a double whammy of rapidly falling demand for its newsprint stocks, allied with the diminishing value of the Norwegian kroner. Norske Skog operates two mills in Australia,  Albury in NSW and Boyer in Tasmania, one in New Zealand, and  four in Europe. Norske Skog’s Australian operations supply some 600,000 tonnes of stock into the local market, and produces paper for much of Asia. Its four European mills supply Europe and the rest of the world.

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