Portals plans for an orderly wind down of its banknote paper business in Overton

In 2018 we successfully carved out Portals from De La Rue to secure the future of the business Since then we have worked hard to ensure that Portals is a sustainable business and have invested substantially to increase our efficiency and cost base and to grow our customer base.

Following the global pandemic and other recent world events we have, however, seen a significant adverse impact on our banknote paper business. It is also clear that the change in the strategy of our largest customer, De La Rue plc,  and the rising input costs specifically of energy, all in the context of the highly price competitive banknote paper marketplace in which we operate, means that our banknote paper business at Overton is no longer viable.

In trying to address this very difficult context, we have considered a range of strategic options. It is therefore with deep regret that we have announced today our proposal for an orderly wind down of operations at our paper mill in Overton, Hampshire.

Portals has a strong, proud heritage and it is our intention to wind down the Overton operations in an orderly fashion with as little disruption as possible – guaranteeing that all obligations to our customers, employees, suppliers and creditors are met.

The orderly wind down of Overton will then allow Portals to fully focus going forward on the remaining, successful parts of its business: our paper mill in Bathford, Somerset, which focusses on the supply of high security papers, and our security features business in Milan, Italy, are unaffected by this announcement.

We would like to thank all of the Portals team for their ongoing dedication and hard work. The coming months will be challenging in many respects and we will continue to do our utmost to maximise the prospects of all of our stakeholders.