Appleton Coated ReStarts Third Paper Machine

Appleton Coated, a mill that shut abruptly last fall when it went into receivership, has been inching back to life, with its third machine restarted Monday (March 26) and 230 of its 600 employees recalled to work.

Its improbable rebirth is coming under an equally improbable owner, used machine dealer Industrial Assets Corp. Other mills that shut in the past, like NewPage in Kimberly, are no more than a pile of rocks today. Appleton Coated, instead, is getting back on its feet.

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“The business going forward is going to be a very different model than we’ve had in the past,” said general manager Doug Osterberg, who was previously president and CEO of the company. “There simply will not be as many people. But it’s a much stronger business and will be much more sustainable.”

The mill still makes traditional printing and writing papers, he said, but is gradually shifting to corrugated medium and containerboard grades. “It’s going to slowly migrate from printing and writing to packaging,” said Osterberg. “It’s what’s happening in the marketplace. There’s less and less print. Right now everyone orders on Amazon. It gets shipped to them in a brown box. That market is booming.”

“This is nothing short of a miracle,” said Tom Nelson, Outagamie County executive. “Rarely has a company gone into receivership, come out and lived to tell the story.”

Industrial Assets bought Appleton Coated at a receivership auction on October 10. It agreed in a court hearing at that time to operate the mill for 90 days as it sought a new buyer to run the mill as an ongoing operation rather than scrap it. A fraction of the company’s 600 were retained to keep the mill in an idle state. But instead of keeping the mill idle, Industrial Assets began to restart machines in December and recall workers.

“It’s pretty clear the facility is more valuable if it’s operating and making money,” said Osterberg. “They saw the opportunity to help the community and put people back to work. The assets here are good assets. Give them credit. They recognized it didn’t have to be scrapped.”

Meanwhile, the 90 days came and went with no new buyer.

read more/source: http://www.paperage.com/2018news/03_27_2018appleton_coated_restarts_third_machine.html

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