NewPage-Stora Integration Costs Jobs, ForcesPlant Closures

MIAMISBURG, OH—The integration of NewPage and the former Stora Enso North America’s facilities and services is going to be painful from an employment standpoint, but is projected to aid in the company’s quest to achieve $265 million in synergies.

The operations are being merged in a way that will see the paper company actually increase its North American production between 3 percent and 8 percent in 2008 compared to the combined production realized in 2007, according to Mark Suwyn, chairman and CEO of NewPage. The moves are as follows:

• The No. 11 paper machine in Rumford, ME, will close permanently by the end of this month. Shutting down the machine, which produces coated freesheet and groundwood paper for magazines and catalogs, will impact 60 jobs.

• The pulp mill and two paper machines (Nos. 43 and 44) in Niagara, WI, will shut down for good by the end of April. The machines produce 230,000 tons of lightweight coated groundwood papers used in magazines and catalogs. Roughly 319 employees will be affected by that shutdown.

• The No. 95 paper machine in Kimberly, WI, will be permanently closed by the end of May. The mill produces coated freesheet papers for publication printing and specialty papers for pressure-sensitive or glue-applied labels. About 125 employees will be impacted.

• The Chillicothe, OH, converting mill will be shut down in November after some of its equipment is relocated to facilities in Luke, MD, and Wisconsin Rapids, WI. Approximately 160 positions will be eliminated.

Products produced on the closed machines will be transitioned to more efficient paper machines within the company’s integrated mill system.