Paper Excellence’s relationship with Asia Pulp & Paper and the Sinar Mas Group.
A new report released today by Greenpeace Canada and other organizations reveals in new detail the corporate ownership of Paper Excellence, which is about to become the largest logging company in Canada. The investigation exposes a complex ownership structure with links leading to the notorious Sinar Mas Group, an Indonesia-based private corporation linked to extensive deforestation and social conflict.
Despite a multi-layered corporate structure with holding companies in numerous jurisdictions, the report’s findings clearly demonstrate a series of factors such as family ties, overlapping management, and lobbyist filings providing strong evidence that the Sinar Mas Group controls Paper Excellence.
The analysis is based on a review of hundreds of publicly available corporate registry documents and other official filings about entities in Canada, Indonesia, France, Brazil, the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia, the British Virgin Islands and other jurisdictions. In Canada, evidence ranges from the British Columbia lobbyist registry in 2022 and the official Sinar Mas letterhead used by Paper Excellence when the company purchased its first mill in Canada.
Paper Excellence now owns mills in half of Canada’s provinces: British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. The past year, in particular, has seen them grow exponentially with the purchase of controversial and litigious logging giant Resolute Forest Products. When the sale of Resolute is concluded, Paper Excellence will become the largest logging company in Canada based on revenues generated.
Currently, the Canadian and Indonesian governments are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement that risks further entrenching the control of corporations like Paper Excellence linked to the Sinar Mas Group over forests to the detriment of local communities. In December, Canada will also host global negotiations under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to agree a framework for greater forest and nature protection over the next 10 years.
The executive summary is available here.
Expose the logging giant taking over forests across Canada.