Business Management - M&A

PORTLAND—Two weeks after its board of directors rejected a $5.4 billion bid to sell all its 112.5 million shares to rival paper and wood products manufacturer Weyerhaeuser, Willamette Industries faced a hostile takeover attempt. Weyerhaeuser Chairman Steven Rogel presented Willamette shareholders an unsolicited offer of $48 per share. Willamette shareholders had until January 4 to accept the offer. "(The offer) provides substantial value to Willamette shareholders at a premium well beyond what Willamette could achieve alone, now or later," Rogel told The Associated Press. Willamette is expected to urge stockholders not to accept the offer, which also includes Weyerhaeuser assuming roughly $1.7 billion in

NEW YORK—It took two years for consolidation to transform the commercial printing sector, it has taken two months of consolidation to transform the printing equipment supplier sector, and in a remarkably swift series of moves, it has taken scarcely two weeks for consolidation to transform the paper market. In mid-February, the low share prices of paper companies, as well as the usual quest to expand markets and raw material sources, drove a series of mergers and acquisitions in the paper and forest products industry—moves that will have a broad impact on commercial printers, for whom paper products are a primary cost center. Among the recent moves:

Foreign paper and board producers gobble up U.S. industry giants as the market continues to tighten for commercial printers. BY ERIK CAGLE Typically, activity in the paper industry is about as gripping as a documentary on fast-drying paints. But during a two-week period in February, two of the biggest names in U.S. paper and board manufacturing paired off with large, foreign counterparts in one of the biggest consolidation waves in industry history. When the smoke cleared: UPM-Kymmene, of Finland, purchased Stamford, CT-based Champion International. Finnish-Swedish manufacturer Stora Enso acquired Chicago-based Consolidated Papers, less than a month after buying Norweigan paper wholesaler Carl Emil