NewPage-Verso Merger Unlikely, Two Experts Say

Recent talks between Apollo Management and Cerberus, which owns NewPage, about the papermaker’s debt were characterized in some media outlets as merger talks. Apollo has bought up a majority of a NewPage debt issue, giving it significant leverage over the largest maker of coated and supercalendered papers in the United States.

“There are reports that Verso and NewPage have discussed combining is some way. I would be very surprised if this happened anytime soon,” Verle Sutton wrote in the February issue of The Reel Time Report (available only through subscription from Forestweb), published yesterday.