Monday, June 18, 2012
Pacific West on Port Hawkesbury Mill
In a letter to customers, Pacific West Commercial Corp., which is in the process of acquiring the NewPage Nova Scotia mill and also owns West Linn Paper, updated the status of Port Hawkesbury: "The Port Hawkesbury Mill’s PM2 machine is in excellent condition, an asset that will produce the highest quality, low cost SC paper in North America...By August of this
year, it is our intent to begin work on starting up the machine and
fulfilling customer orders. We have concluded, or are in the midst of
finalizing secure, long term agreements with key stakeholders including
the union, the local electric utility, Nova Scotia Power (NSPI), raw
product suppliers and the Province of Nova Scotia (to ensure a long
term, secure, competitive and sustainable fibre supply) – all of which
will allow us to be a low cost producer of SC paper in North America for
the foreseeable future. We would not re-start the mill unless we were
able to achieve this goal.We are in the process of finalizing a lending
agreement and are equally
committed to ensuring the mill is in the best position possible to
compete and succeed in the marketplace..."
Reverberations from Closure of Bowater Mersey
Leaders
of Canada’s largest forestry union are calling on Government of Nova Scotia to
step up to the plate, following today’s announcement of the indefinite closure
of the Resolute Forests Products mill in Brooklyn, N.S. “We
call on the government of Nova Scotia to immediately purchase the private
forest lands owned by the company to ensure the citizens of Nova Scotia have
access to forest-dependent jobs and their community for the long run,” says
Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of
Canada.
The owner of the troubled paper mill in Brooklyn is
putting off $25 million worth of upgrades, prompting questions about the
future of the operation on Nova Scotia's South Shore.
Resolute
Forest Products, owner of the Bowater Mersey paper plant, was offered that
money in the form of a capital loan last December as part of a $50-million
rescue package to secure 2,000 jobs. The
company was supposed to buy new machinery to make the mill more productive
and energy-efficient. |
Hearst Revives Elle Accessories
Elle Accessories, devoted to fashion accessories like handbags, jewelry and
shoes, was a spinoff of Elle magazine that was introduced by Hachette
Filipacchi Media U.S. in 2005 and closed in 2008. (Some overseas editions have
continued to publish.) Hearst Magazines, which acquired Hachette Filipacchi
Media U.S. last year, has decided to revive the American edition of Elle
Accessories with the same frequency as before, twice a year, in spring and
fall.
J.Crew Expands to China
J.Crew, the iconic American
retailer and Lane Crawford, Asia's leading designer
specialty store, are excited to announce a strategic partnership, providing
customers in Asia with special access to the
J.Crew women's and men's collections through Lane Crawford's retail and online
stores.
Ascena May Sell Figi's, Close FASHION BUG
Ascena also announced that, based on the results
of its strategic review of Charming Shoppes’ operations, it plans to cease
operating and close down Charming Shoppes’ FASHION BUG® business by early 2013. In addition, Ascena announced that it is exploring a potential sale of
Charming Shoppes’ Figi’s® business, which markets food and specialty gift
products. Although the Figi’s business is a growing and profitable business, it
is clearly a different type of business than Ascena’s other apparel brands.
Publishers Using Innovative "Bookazines" to Sell Content
At the Publishing
Business Conference in March, Mark White, vice president of specialty marketing
at U.S. News, spoke about his company’s marketing of bookazines— hybrids of
books and magazines that hold promise for publishers looking for new ways to
reach niche audiences with repurposed content. Bookazines combine all that people find pleasing about magazines with the permanence, niche
appeal and price-point of books. National Geographic has also seen bookazine opportunity in its extensive
content archives geared toward niche interests with National
Geographic Magazine Collector’s Editions.
Postal Vision Conference: Future Opportunities
The second Postal Vision conference drew 150 attendees to Washington DC’s
L’Enfant Plaza Hotel. No one from Congress could
squeeze it in but USPS’ new Digital Solutions President and Strategic Planning
Manager were in attendance...The real benefactors of this conference were the entrepreneurs in the
audience. They recognize (1) Congress will never let the USPS go under, (2)
USPS can only embrace digital technologies via work share contracts with the
private sector, and (3) despite cascading physical mail volumes the USPS is
still a $50 billion dollar business projected to handle half the world’s mail
volume by 2020.
USPS Issues Sustainability Report
Demonstrating
its continued commitment to sustainability excellence, the U.S. Postal Service
recently published its 2011 Annual Sustainability Report, which highlighted achievements,
including a 7.4 percent decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a
fiscal year (FY) 2008 baseline. The reduction of almost 985,000 metric tons of
CO2 is equal to removing nearly 200,000 passenger vehicles from the road for a
year.
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