UPM Agrees on New Financing Arrangements


Helsinki, Finland, 21 December 2010  -- UPM has prepaid all of the Uruguay Fray Bentos pulp mill investment project loans of USD 372 million. The security arrangements relating to the project loans will be released. The prepayment reduces financing costs and simplifies the Group's financing structure.

UPM also has agreed on new bilateral committed credit facilities totalling EUR 675 million, which all are currently undrawn. The EUR 1.0 billion syndicated credit facility that serves as UPM's current back stop facility will expire in March 2012. The rest of the refinancing is planned to be agreed by the end of the first quarter of 2011 in a form of additional bilateral credit facilities and a syndicated credit facility. The new syndicated credit facility is planned to be significantly smaller than the current one.

UPM also has agreed on new bank loans totalling EUR 800 million to finance the recently announced Myllykoski transaction. The loans will have an average maturity exceeding five years.