The European Commission has today approved the merger between Ahlstrom Corporation and Munksjö Oyj. Ahlstrom and Munksjö have now received all pre-closing competition approvals required for completing the merger.

The merger is currently expected to be completed on or about April 1, 2017. As communicated earlier, the completion of the merger is subject to certain customary conditions concerning, among other things, the availability of financing and the absence of events that would have a material adverse effect on either company

Ahlstrom and Munksjö have agreed to distribute funds to their respective shareholders prior to the completion of the merger in the amount of approximately EUR 23 million each, corresponding to EUR 0.49 per share in Ahlstrom and EUR 0.45 per share in Munksjö. The Boards of Directors of Ahlstrom and Munksjö intend to resolve on the distributions on or about March 16, 2017. If the distributions are resolved upon on March 16, 2017, their record date would be March 20, 2017 and payment date March 27, 2017.