In other words, Arctic Paper's offer will not be accepted to such an

extent that Arctic Paper would obtain over 90 percent and thereby be

able to request the compulsory redemption of outstanding shares and

consequently that a merger cannot be implemented.

A merger of the two companies may be expected to generate synergies of

approximately SEK 80 million and also that, from the perspective of

both results and cash flow, a merger would balance out the two

companies' very strong dependency on fluctuations in pulp prices. A

precondition for realising a substantial proportion of these synergies

is that the companies are completely amalgamated and that one head

office and one management group be phased out.

The Board of Directors' recommendation remains unchanged, that is to

say that the companies merge to enable these synergies to be realised.

The fact that two major owners controlling more than 10 per cent of the

capital and voting power have given notice that they will not accept

the bid means in that event that a merger cannot be effected and that

it would thus not be possible to secure most of these synergies.