MARYSVILLE – A federal bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of three Crown Pacific sawmills, including one in Marysville, to a Canadian forest products company.
The new owner, International Forest Products Ltd., plans to keep the mills running, company spokesman Steve Crombie said.
“We think these mills operate very well, and they’re well-managed,” he said, adding that executives from the Vancouver, B.C.-based firm held conference calls Thursday with mill employees.
“We’ve indicated to employees of the operation there will be little change,” Crombie said.
International Forest Products, also known as Interfor, agreed to pay bankrupt Crown Pacific $57.3 million and provide another $16 million in working capital for the mills. Besides the Marysville facility, which employs about 40 people, the company is taking over a Port Angeles mill and one in central Oregon.
After International Forest Products made its offer for the mills in July, other companies could have submitted bids. Crown Pacific also had the right to enter a higher bid. In the end, the company didn’t do that, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix approved the sale.
Brian Gard, a spokesman for Crown Pacific in Portland, Ore., said I the company was happy with the outcome of the sale.
“One of the goals Crown Pacific had when they went into bankruptcy was to protect the operating units and the employees,” Gard said.
International Forest Products has said it plans to keep virtually all of the three mills’ employees.
Crombie said after its purchase transaction closes, the company will run the mills as a separate division, with a headquarters located in either Washington or Oregon.
The Marysville mill, which opened in the 1950s, can cut up to 40 million board feet a year of stud lumber out of Douglas fir and other logs. It and the two other mills should benefit from strong demand for stud lumber because of home-building across the nation, Crombie said.
Meanwhile, Crown Pacific Partners LP appears one step closer to dissolving. Founded in 1988, the Portland-based company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in June 2003.
Earlier this year, the company sold off lumberyard operations in the Southwest. With the sale of the company’s mills, the only remaining asset of note is more than 700,000 acres of timberland in Washington and Oregon, including some in Snohomish County. Gard said negotiations are ongoing to sell that as well.
“I think certainly a great likelihood is that the creditors would form a company to manage the timberlands,” he said. Alternatively, the timberland could be sold, he said.
Either way, Crown Pacific would cease to exist. On Friday, the company’s Over the Counter Bulletin Board stock fell nearly 1 cent to close just above 2 cents a share.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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