photo daily tribune media file photowisconsin rapids &mdash a finnish packaging materials company has completed its acquisition of corenso, which includes wisconsin rapidsbased corenso north america, the companies announced monday.daily tribune media had previously reported that stora enso had reached a conditional agreement in late september to divest the corenso business to powerflute. corenso has about 920 employees in 10 countries. powerflute bought all the stora ensoowned corenso operations, including corenso north america in wisconsin rapidscorenso has two facilities in wisconsin rapids with 165 fulltime employees, said tom janke, president of the wisconsin rapidsbased operation.the acquisition is not expected to affect employment numbers, janke said.&ldquoit&rsquos business as usual for us,&rdquo he said. &ldquowe&rsquore continuing to pursue the same goals and targets we have had.&rdquocorenso&rsquos plant at 800 fremont st. converts recycled paper into spirally wound cores and tubes used for flexible packaging film for agriculture use or packaging medical products, and tape and label customers.the other facility is within the wisconsin rapids mill of newpage corp. the corenso machine there makes uncoated, recycled board for products that include slip sheet a sheet of paper placed between newly printed sheets to prevent offset or smudging, edgeboard and vboard, which are used in packaging appliances for shipping.corenso is part of stora enso renewable packaging division. stora enso, which bought the business from consolidated paper in 2000, is divesting from corenso to streamline itself and transform stora enso into a renewable materials company in growth markets, the companies had previously reported.janke said the transaction with powerflute is valued at about 112 million.powerflute chairman dermot smurfit said in a news release that the acquisition of corenso &ldquois a major step for powerflute and is consistent with our strategy of pursuing opportunities for growth and development in attractive, specialty paper and packaging markets.&ldquofollowing completion of the integration of corenso, powerflute will be a significantly larger group which we believe will provide us with a strong foundation from which to pursue further acquisition opportunities in due course.&rdquothat&rsquos an optimistic, insightful comment, janke said&ldquowe&rsquove not been able to have any specific conversation with the new owners as to what their intentions are, but we look forward to having those discussions now,&rdquo janke said. &ldquowe&rsquore looking forward to those, and their previous history indicates their willingness and desire to develop and grow their business.&ldquoover the next 30 days, there will be more discussion around the opportunities that we see, as well as getting some feedback as to what the new owner&rsquos intentions are.&rdquodeb cleworth can be reached at 7154237200, ext. 6730 or deb.cleworth@cwnews.net. follow her on twitter @debcleworth. about the companies&bull&ldquopowerflute is a paper and packaging group which seeks to acquire businesses with strong fundamentals whose performance can be improved through a combination of management focus and targeted investment,&rdquo according to its website. read the full release at www.powerflute.com.&bullcorenso makes cores and coreboard in paper mills in the united states and europe and other facilities in europe, north america and china. read the full release at www.storaenso.com. 
