Accrol buyer ups offer price

The Navigator Company has increased its offer for the purchase of Blackburn-based paper products company Accrol.

The latest all-cash offer has increased from 38p to 39p, representing a nearly 15 per cent increase over the 34p trading price on the day the initial offer was made in March.

If the sale goes through, Accrol will become part of Navigator UK, and part of the wider Portugal-based Navigator Paper group, which is listed on the Euronext Lisbon Stock Exchange and would create a business with £500m annual revenues.

Navigator says the £130.8m offer is its final offer.

Accrol manufactures toilet tissues, kitchen rolls, facial tissues and wet wipes. In recent years it has enjoyed organic growth backed by various acquisitions and n the year ended 30 April 2023, posted revenues of £242m.

Navigator is a large Portuguese integrated pulp, paper, tissue, packaging and biomass-based energy company, listed with a market capitalisation of approximately €2.75bn.

In the financial year ended 31 December 2023 Navigator reported consolidated revenues of €1,953m and consolidated EBITDA of €502m.

The Navigator Company is ranked seventh worldwide in capacity of production of fine printing and writing paper, processing more than 1.6 million tonnes of paper per year. It moved into the tissue market in 2014, and expects Accrol to account for around 50 per cent of Navigator’s total tissue turnover.