PHOENIX (AP) — AbitibiBowater has agreed to sell its recycled-newsprint mill in northeast Arizona to a Canadian company for $161 million, a Phoenix newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Arizona Republic said the 450-employee plant in Snowflake is being sold to Catalyst Paper Corp., of Vancouver, British Columbia, to gain U.S. Justice Department approval of the merger of paper producers Abitibi Consolidated Inc. of Montreal and Bowater Corp. of Greenville, S.C.
The deal includes the Apache Railway Co., a short-line railroad that transports freight between Snowflake and Holbrook, Ariz.
The acquisition is expected to be completed later this year.
The Snowflake plant produces about 420,000 tons of newsprint per year and is the recipient of most of the recycled newspapers in Arizona.
he plant produces 125,000 tons of corrugated paper per year and generated about $195 million in sales in 2007.
''The Snowflake mill will improve our cost-competitiveness, strengthen our presence on the West Coast of North America and provide us with a more freight-logical way to serve existing as well as new customers,'' said Richard Garneau, Catalyst's president and chief executive.
