Lecta is owned by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and was formed in the late 1990s through the acquisitions of Cartiere del Garda in Italy, Condat in France and Torraspapel in Spain. It is headquartered in Barcelona and has a UK sales office in Milton Keynes.

The group has seven paper mills on the continent manufacturing papers for commercial printing and publishing, business forms, labels and packaging, and the digital and wide-format markets.

Its product range includes coated, uncoated, metallised, carbonless and pressure-sensitive papers with a combined annual capacity of nearly 2m tonnes. It had sales of €1.6bn (£1.4bn) in 2015 and employs around 3,360 staff.

Reuters reported that CVC has hired Swiss bank UBS to either sell the business or float it on the Spanish stock market.

Lecta has not commented.