Sonae Arauco is a new company resulting from a strategic partnership between Sonae Indústria and Arauco. This 50/50 partnership involves the existing European and South African wood based panels and related operations of Sonae Indústria, namely all its production facilities of wood based panels, chemicals and paper impregnation, but excludes Sonae Indústria’s operations in North America and the laminates and components business, which will continue to be fully owned by Sonae Indústria.

With 13 plants located in four countries on two continents and with more than 2700 employees worldwide, Sonae Arauco is one of the largest wood-based panel producers in the world.

Wood-based panels are valuable alternatives to solid wood with some clear advantages, namely in terms of efficiency on the use of raw materials. Another particular advantage is their dimensional flexibility, which (in contrast to solid wood) allows for the production of tailor-made sizes that can be adapted to the requirements of client applications. Hence, today we see wood-based panels replacing solid wood in an increasing number of applications.