Stora Enso is one of the world's largest integrated renewable-materials groups and is now explicitly repositioning itself as a packaging-led company. Its core is premium virgin-fibre consumer board: folding boxboard, solid bleached sulphate, coated unbleached kraft, liquid packaging board and foodservice board. Around that core sit containerboard and European corrugated converting, specialty and eucalyptus pulp, and a residual wood and energy platform. The group owns large forest assets, valued at EUR 8.5bn at 30 June 2026 (EUR 10.80 per share), which is more than its current share price. It is preparing to demerge its 1.2m-hectare Swedish forest estate into a separately listed company, Bergslagets Skogar, in H1/2027. Profitability is cyclically depressed. FY2025 adjusted EBIT margin was 5.7%, against a new target above 10%. The investment case therefore rests on three things: the ramp-up of the EUR 1bn-class Oulu consumer-board line, portfolio simplification, and the value released by separating the forest assets from the industrial business.
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### Company self-description (paraphrased from FY2025 and H1/2026 reports)
Stora Enso describes itself as a global leader in renewable materials with a strong focus on packaging. Its stated purpose is to replace non-renewable materials with renewable solutions. It says it designs and delivers packaging materials and solutions made from fresh and recycled fibres, in partnership with customers, to accelerate the transition to a circular bioeconomy. It cites roughly 19,000 employees and 2025 sales of EUR 9.3bn.
### Business model and revenue model
Stora Enso sells physical products. Revenue is almost entirely product revenue, with negligible service, subscription or licensing income. Its revenue streams are:
1. **Board and paper tonnage.** FY2025 deliveries were 2,852 kt of consumer board, 1,296 kt of containerboard and 561 kt of paper. These are sold under framework contracts and spot pricing to converters and brand owners.
2. **Converted corrugated packaging.** FY2025 European deliveries were 1,216 million m². These go to retail, e-commerce, food and industrial customers.
3. **Market pulp.** FY2025 deliveries were 2,019 kt, covering specialty softwood, fluff and dissolving-type grades from the Nordics and eucalyptus from the Latin American JVs.
4. **Wood products.** FY2025 deliveries were 4,440 thousand m³ of sawn timber, CLT, LVL and further-processed products.
5. **Wood trading and forest-related sales.** FY2025 external wood deliveries were 13,255 thousand m³. The forest operations also generate the internal supply-chain margin.
6. **Energy and by-products.** These include electricity sales linked to its Pohjolan Voima (PVO) shareholding and sales of CO₂ emission allowances (about EUR 72m operating income in 2025, guided to EUR 10–20m in 2026).
There is a small "pricing as service" element in Packaging Solutions, which offers design and sustainability services, but the company does not disclose it as a separate revenue stream.
### Value-chain position
Stora Enso is unusually vertically integrated:
- **Forest ownership and wood sourcing.** It holds direct and associated forest assets in Sweden, Finland (41% of Tornator), the Baltics, Uruguay and Brazil (JV plantations) and China (Guangxi plantations). This gives it partial control of fibre cost.
- **Pulp production.** It produces chemical and semi-chemical pulp, largely integrated into board production, with some sold on the market.
- **Board and paper production.** It operates large integrated mills: Imatra, Skoghall, Fors, Oulu, Ingerois/Anjalankoski, Beihai, Varkaus, Heinola and Ostrołęka.
- **Conversion.** It runs corrugated box plants, reinforced by the 2023 acquisition of De Jong Packaging.
- **Energy.** It holds 16.5% of PVO, which entitles it to at-cost power: 8.9% of Olkiluoto nuclear output and 20.6% of PVO hydro output.
### Customer types and end-markets
### Independent characterisation
Stora Enso is in the middle of transforming from a diversified Nordic forest conglomerate into a focused packaging-materials company that keeps a pulp leg. The industrial business currently earns well below its cost of capital. Adjusted ROCE excluding the Forest segment was 2.7% in FY2025, against a former target above 13%. The listed equity is valued at less than the fair value of the group's forest assets alone, which implies the market assigns negative or very low value to the industrial operations. Management's agenda follows from that gap. It plans to separate the forest so it can be valued as a stand-alone, lower-volatility asset. It is fixing returns in consumer board through the Oulu ramp-up and cost actions. It is pruning sub-scale corrugated and Central European wood assets. It also issued EUR 1bn of hybrid capital to protect the investment-grade rating through the transition.
### Group sales mix (external sales, new structure)
Source: Stora Enso H1/2026 report, sales by segment (external); FY2025 restated per release of 25 Mar 2026.
