Helsinki, Finland, 01 December 2011 -- Ahlstrom Corporation is concluding its profit improvement program with measures reducing staffing by 57 employees in different locations.

Ahlstrom has decided to reduce staffing by 35 employees at its Jacarei plant in Brazil, part of the Label and Processing business area, because of the weakened market conditions in coated papers in South America. In addition, streamlining measures at other plants will affect a total of 22 employees.

The measures announced today are the final steps in the profit improvement program announced on October 18, 2011. Under the program, the company announced profit improvement measures affecting a total of 362 employees in various plants worldwide. The program is expected to improve annual operating profit by approximately EUR 15 million, starting from the year 2012. The overall impact of the nonrecurring items of the program is cash neutral.

Ahlstrom will book nonrecurring costs of about EUR 1.4 million, primarily for the measures at Jacarei, in its fourth quarter 2011 financial results. For the entire profit improvement program, the company incurred a nonrecurring cost totaling EUR 33.4 million, of which EUR 25 million was booked in the third quarter and EUR 8.4 million will be booked in the fourth quarter 2011 results.

Ahlstrom will make every effort in supporting employees affected by the change.

Ahlstrom is a high performance materials company. Its products are used in various everyday applications, such as filters, wallcovers, flooring, labels, and food packaging. Ahlstrom has 5700 employees serving customers in 26 countries on six continents. In 2010, Ahlstrom's net sales amounted to EUR 1.9 billion. The company's share is quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. More information is available at www.ahlstrom.com.