JCE Group AB has sold its wholly owned US subsidiary Green Circle Bio Energy, Inc. to Enviva Holdings, LP. The transaction required approvals from both US and European competition authorities, which were granted in December 2014.

Green Circle was founded in 2006 by JCE and is the world’s first large-scale wood pellet plant with a production capacity of approximately 650,000 metric tons of pellets per year. The plant, located in Cottondale, Florida, is one of the world’s largest wood pellet plants. Most of the production is sold under long-term contracts to large industrial customers in northern Europe.

US-based Enviva, which has filed for listing on the New York Stock Exchange, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wood pellets, with a total production capacity prior to the acquisition of approximately 1.6 million metric tons per year spread over five different pellet plants in the southeastern United States.

JCE Group was advised by Mannheimer Swartling in the transaction. The firm’s team was led by Hampus Thofte, primarily assisted by Jakob Wijkander. Stefan Perván Lindeborg and Urszula Sieradzka handled European competition law issues.