Posted on 01/20/2015 12:44:40 PM PST by robowombat
Prospective Buyers Emerge For Shuttered Maine Paper Plant
Andy Szal, Real Time Digital Reporter, Manufacturing.net
A federal judge is holding an emergency hearing Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015, to consider offers to buy the shuttered paper mill. An Indian firm, and potentially others, are interested in buying the mill and operating it as a paper-making enterprise. The hearing comes as a labor union has filed a lawsuit to block the sale of the mill to a scrap metal recycler. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) In this file photo made Sept. 20, 2013, steam from the Verso paper mill is backlit by the light of the setting moon in this time-exposure, in Bucksport, Maine. A federal judge is holding an emergency hearing Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015, to consider offers to buy the shuttered paper mill. An Indian firm, and potentially others, are interested in buying the mill and operating it as a paper-making enterprise. The hearing comes as a labor union has filed a lawsuit to block the sale of the mill to a scrap metal recycler. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) Three companies have expressed interest in reopening a Maine paper plant closed last month.
But the head of the firm set to take control of the plant says he won't open discussions unless offers are on the table, and a federal judge today rejected efforts to halt the sale.
Verso Paper Corp. last fall announced plans to close its plant in Bucksport effective Dec. 1, eliminating more than 500 jobs. AIM Development LLC, a Canadian metal recycler, was set to purchase the facility, but the machinists' union representing the laid-off workers filed a federal antitrust lawsuit to block the sale.
The union alleged Verso and NewPage colluded to close down the Bucksport plant ahead of a planned merger -- allegations Verso and the U.S. Department of Justice have refuted -- and had sought to halt the sale as the case moves through the legal process.
U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, however, rejected that effort in a decision issued today.
Ahead of today's hearing, meanwhile, three companies indicated their interest in acquiring the paper mill and restarting production: Pennsylvania-based Fibre Technologies, New York-based Minimill Technologies and Indian company Kejriwal Singapore International. Woodcock wrote in his order that the federal court could offer mediation to resolve the matter.
But AIM President Herbert Black said he's skeptical about those potential buyers, although he'd be "open to offers if people have money."
"I'm the seller of anything and everything at a price, but if you don't have any money it doesn't really matter what the price is," Black said.
AIM officials had speculated about converting the mill to a recycling facility due to its location near a deep water port, but the company previously demolished a Verso mill it purchased in Minnesota in 2013. Black said today the company intends to sell the plant piecemeal, though he did not go into further detail.
I’m not from Maine, but this sounds familiar: the union, having driven the plant out of business, now thinks it’s entitled to dictate the terms of its sale.
They’re completely oblivious. Probably voted for Dimocrats all their lives too.
It sat vacant for over a decade before it got its proud new life of processing fracking water.
bfl
From Boston Globe:
Missoula, Montana used to have a paper mill, a fiberboard mill, half a dozen sawmills and numerous sawyers and logging truck drivers. There might be one sawmill left. It wasn’t the unions, it was the environmentalists.
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