Paper manufacturer folds

Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Published : 16 Aug 2004 14:43

Company executives at Boise Cascade Corp. announced plans to sell its paper and timber assets to a private investment group for about $3.2 billion in cash.

Company executives at Boise Cascade Corp. announced plans to sell its paper and timber assets to a private investment group for about $3.2 billion in cash.

According to George J. Harad, chairman and chief executive officer, this step marks the completion of the company’s review of strategic alternatives, originally announced in July 2003: “This will complete Boise’s transformation, begun in the mid-1990s, from a predominantly manufacturing-based company to a world-scale distribution company.”

The Idaho-based company anticipates the sale to be completed by November. Boise Cascade will also change its name to OfficeMax, the Cleveland-based office products seller it bought a year ago for $1.2 billion in cash and stock. It will be headquartered in Itasca, IL, outside Chicago.

The sale will include several businesses: Boise Building Solutions, a major producer of plywood, lumber, particleboard, and engineered wood products at 22 facilities in the United States, Canada, and Brazil, which reported first half 2004 sales of $1.9 billion; Boise Paper Solutions, a manufacturer of uncoated free sheet papers, which operates five pulp and paper mills, two paper converting facilities, six paper distribution centers, and five corrugated container plants in the United States and recorded first half 2004 sales of $1.0 billion; and 2.3 million acres of timberlands in the United States, 35,000 acres of eucalyptus plantation land in Brazil, and a 16,000-acre cottonwood fiber farm near Wallula, WA.

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