Update: the European Commission cleared M&G Investment Management and Arini Capital's joint control of Reno de Medici on Sept. 25 under the simplified merger procedure, replacing Apollo as controlling shareholder; the recapitalisation converts up to €300M of debt into equity and adds €100M of new financing, with completion expected in Q4 2026 while the Court of Milan still reviews the restructuring agreement filed in August (EUWID)
Forestry & Timber
Italian wood-furniture exports fell 4.5% to €9.2B in H1 2026, with the US down 11.3% (slipping from second to third market), Germany −7.8%, the UK −5.3%, France −4.6% and the UAE −15.2% and out of the top ten; furniture alone reached €6.38B through July (−5.7% y/y), with July the least-negative month of the year so far and the US decline narrowing to 2.5%, per FederlegnoArredo Centro Studi's read of Istat data (Fordaq)
The US$11M XPRIZE Wildfire competition named its winners Sept. 24 after three years: Anduril Industries took first place in autonomous response (US$1.2M plus a US$1M bonus) ahead of Dryad Networks (US$800,000) and AURA Foresight (US$500,000), tested against a 10-minute suppression challenge across 1,000 km² of Alaskan wilderness, while SIRIUS Wildfire Alliance (US$500,000) won the space-based detection track ahead of Team Snuffed (US$250,000) (Timberbiz)
Indian decorative wall-panel maker Euro Pratik is acquiring 56% of Fabwood Solutions LLP for ₹42.70 crore (~US$4.46M) plus a ₹8.40 crore capital injection, with completion on or before Oct. 8; Fab Wood is a South India-focused supplier of timber, engineered wood, cladding, doors and related products to furniture makers, contractors and architects (Fordaq)
Houtindustrie Amersfoort B.V., a Dutch joinery manufacturer with more than 100 years of history making custom window frames, doors, sliding doors and façade joinery, was declared bankrupt Sept. 22 (publicly recorded Sept. 23) by the Midden-Nederland court in Utrecht; employee numbers and debt levels await the curator's first report (Fordaq)
GWMI reports the UK timber recovery forecast for 2026 has not materialised: construction remains subdued, private housing disappoints, customers delay purchases and buy over shorter horizons, leaving inventories lean and margins under pressure even though supply is adequate (Global Wood Markets Info)
Rising diesel costs are squeezing European harvesting and roundwood haulage unevenly: Poland, Sweden, Austria and Germany already operate compensation or tax-relief frameworks, while contractors in France and Finland are pressing for stronger support as sawmills in several markets already pay heavily for raw material (Global Wood Markets Info)
FSC signalled a shift toward data-centred assurance at its annual FSC-CB meeting (Cologne, Sept. 15–17, ~200 participants), pairing AI, GIS mapping and digital traceability with human auditors; FSC International's Elena Tveritinova said "technology alone is not the answer," and SGS's Christian Kobel added "we need humans interviewing humans, and we can't replace this by machines" (Timberbiz)
Melbourne's A$395M Albert Park Formula 1 pit building will carry what Development Victoria calls Australia's largest timber roof by area: 791 linear metres of MASSLAM glulam from Australian Sustainable Hardwoods' Heyfield mill in Gippsland (plantation-grown shining gum) alongside almost 1,000 t of steel and 208 feature concrete panels, with 14 garages ready for the 2027 race and full completion for the 2028 Grand Prix (Wood Central)
Türkiye's forest-products sector used the first ORSİAD workshop at Intermob in Istanbul (Sept. 17) to press for higher-value production, recycling, timber construction and lower raw-material costs, arguing that strong panel capacity is not translating into enough value from wood (Global Wood Markets Info)
Industry Technology Vendors
Peterson Sawmills — Founder Carl James Peterson, who built the first commercial portable swingblade sawmill in 1988 and created a product category later adopted by competing swingblade manufacturers, died Sept. 11; thousands of Peterson mills remain in service worldwide (Timberbiz)
