AvestaPolarit has appointed Jouni Grönroos as Senior Vice President – Finance and member of the Executive Committee with effect from 1 December 2002. He will be in charge of AvestaPolarit’s financial planning and control, accounting and group-level credit control, as well as issues related to the reorganization of the internal audit and treasury functions. He will succeed Ian Cooper, AvestaPolarit’s Chief Financial Officer, who has decided to leave the company at the end of 2002 to take up a new position in the UK. Ian Cooper’s resignation follows reorganisation of the overall finance function after Outokumpu has acquired full ownership of AvestaPolarit and the two groups proceed with the integration of their corporate activities.