Neenah Completes Purchase of ITASA

Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. and Tembec Inc. announced that the Québec Superior Court issued a final order approving the previously announced statutory arrangement under Section 192 of the Canada Business Corporations Act involving the acquisition by Rayonier Advanced Materials of all of the outstanding shares of Tembec. The Transaction has already received clearance from Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, and the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have notified Rayonier Advanced Materials and Tembec that the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification waiting period was terminated. Applications for clearance from the applicable regulatory authorities in Canada and China, respectively, are pending. Subject to obtaining other necessary approvals, as well as the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions to the Transaction, it is expected that the Transaction will be completed in the fourth quarter of 2017.

After nearly two years of planning and construction, Windsor Mill’s newly reconfigured woodroom is now one of the largest and most modern in North America. The woodroom upgrade allows the mill to increase productivity while reducing fiber loss between the forest and the mill. The woodroom is where logs are debarked and processed into wood chips to feed the mill. The woodroom upgrade involved replacing two existing log-processing lines with one modern, state-of-the-art line. While the previous system could process only 8-foot-long logs, the new single-line system boasts more capacity and can handle logs that are 4 to 26 feet long. Windsor Mill Manager Sylvain Bricault says the debarking process improvement will reduce fiber loss by 4 percent each year, allowing the mill to get more usable fiber from the same amount of wood.

Total European shipments of graphic papers in December 2022 were down 29.8% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 14.0% year-to-date. Total European shipments of newsprint in December 2022 were down 20.1% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 9.9% year-to-date. Total European shipments of sc-magazine in December 2022 were down 28.2% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 16.9% year-to-date. Total European shipments of coated mechanical reels in December 2022 were down 37.2% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 22.2% year-to-date. Total European shipments of uncoated mechanical (improved & others) in December 2022 were down 16.2% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 13.9% year-to-date. Total European shipments of coated woodfree in December 2022 were down 45.5% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 11.1% year-to-date. Total European shipments of uncoated woodfree in December 2022 were down 26.8% vs. December 2021 and shipments were down 12.6% year-to-date.