<B>Swedish Company Receives OK to Purchase Box Operations</B>

Stockholm-based Svenska Cellulosa, Europe's largest tissue-maker, won conditional European Commission approval to buy Finland's Metsae-Serla Oyj's corrugated-box operations.

The companies agreed to sell Metsae-Serla's Neopac A/S unit and two of SCA's box-making operations to Jefferson Smurfit Group.

``The commission considered that the sale of the Neopac business and the two box plants to Jefferson Smurfit or another effective competitor would maintain effective competition in Denmark,'' said the commission, the EU's executive arm.

The commission is currently also examining SCA's purchase of a 66 percent stake in Metsae-Serla's Metsae Tissue Oyj, which was in exchange for its stake in Modo Paper.