Fedrigoni closes Giano: Dubag's offer for Fabriano arrives (late)

While Fedrigoni's parent company Fedrigoni is working to find a solution to the closure of Giano, a subsidiary company active in office papers, the interest of a German financial group for Fabriano's entire perimeter has emerged: it is the Dubag fund, an investor based in Munich and active in special situations, which, according to rumours, announced its interest about three weeks ago. It was precisely Dubag that had put Fabriano's two business areas on the radar, namely office paper and paper for art and design. These activities have a total turnover of 220 million euro with an Ebitda of 18 million. The business is weighed down by office papers, which generate revenues of EUR 135 million, but burn cash due to negative EBITDA.

Dubag's interest follows that of other foreign investors in the past months, when the road to the sale of Fabriano's perimeter still seemed feasible: initial talks, which never came to fruition, were held by the US private equity Mutares (for office papers only) and the multinational Fila (interested mainly in drawing papers).

Dubag's aims therefore seem belated, given that the shareholder Fedrigoni (itself controlled by the Bain Capital and Bc Partners funds) has by now decided to close the office paper business, with the company Giano, as of 1 January 2025 and focus on drawing paper. Sources close to Fedrigoni, in fact, explain that none of the proposals received gave the necessary guarantees for the continuation of the business and were therefore rejected.

In the meantime, Fedrigoni announced its intention to relocate part of the 195 employees of Giano to the other plants in the Marche region and the group's Italian sites in Verona and Trentino. This is an initial solution proposed by the company to the unions during the plenary meeting in Verona and which will be discussed at the next face-to-face meeting scheduled to take place in Fabriano on 24 October, to mitigate the employment impact of the opening of the collective redundancy procedure for its 195 employees. "The company is working actively to find all viable solutions that can reduce the impact of the closure of Giano on people and jobs," explained Giuseppe Giacobello, industrial relations manager of the Fedrigoni group . "We must bear in mind, however, that we are only at the beginning of the process, other meetings with social partners, trade unions and institutions will follow, and so we invite people to have faith in this path. We are counting on arriving at the meeting on 24 October with further opportunities, also of an industrial nature," Giacobello concluded, reiterating that there is no intention of leaving the Marche region, "but rather we will continue to invest in the development of our production and converting sites in this area and on the Fabriano brand, which we want to make into a world-leading brand of distinctive products, such as art and drawing papers, school and stationery products, and security papers.