Paper Industry M&A — The Consolidation Craze

Printing/writing paper capacity in 2001 has been revised downward by 4 percent, or almost 1.2 million tons, compared with the projection in last year's survey. This decline was not surprising because much of this capacity was already shut down in 2000, but was retained in last year's survey because the one-year shutdown rule had not been satisfied. The rule requires that mills and machines must be dismantled or closed for at least one year before their capacities are removed from AF&PA's survey base.