Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Tembec Selling Pulp Mill to Paper Excellence

Tembec Inc. ("Tembec") announced today that it has reached an agreement to sell its NBSK pulp mill and related assets and liabilities located in Skookumchuck, British Columbia to Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation ("Paper Excellence") for a purchase price of $89 million , which includes working capital. Closing of the transaction is expected to occur in the second calendar quarter of 2013 and remains subject to certain conditions and regulatory approvals.

Resolute Releases 2012 Annual Report

Resolute Forest Products today issued its 2012 Annual Report, which includes an overview of the Company's 2012 sustainability performance. While Resolute will continue to produce its Annual Sustainability Report using Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, the Company is now also integrating sustainability performance information into its annual financial disclosure.

Russia Lowers Duty on Coated Paper

Russia has once again decided to reduce its import duty on coated paper from 15% to 5%.
The decision, which was taken on March 19 by the customs union which Russia formed with Belarus and Kazakhstan, will come into force 30 days from that date. It will be valid for nine months, until January 19, 2014.
The measure is aimed at stimulating the development of the domestic publishing industry.
The Kama mill in the Perm region launched its 86,000 tonne/yr LWC PM in 2012, but had to stop production shortly after the start-up due to the financial difficulties of its then managing company Investlesprom.
Ilim Group, which is rebuilding a second-hand PM at its Koryazhma mill in the Arkhangelsk region, is expected to start production on the 70,000 tonne/yr woodfree (CWF) paper PM in June 2013.
The changes in the import duty level have been been a source of continual controversy among Russian market players over the past few years. Certain paper producers have argued that the government should promote domestic production of coated publication paper grades through increased import duties. Representatives of the publishing industry, however, say that the government's decision to decline a permanent 5% import tariff is due to a strong lobby by the large Russian pulp and paper player Ilim Group.
In 2011, Russia imported around 420,000 tonnes of coated publication paper, according to RISI estimates.

Workers End Strike at Nippon WA Mill

When union workers return to their jobs at Nippon Paper Industries USA today, they will spend several hours warming up the machines before any paper is produced.

Social Media Ads Least Trusted

Consumers Not Trusting Of Social Media Ads: A Forrester Research survey finds consumers place the least amount of trust in social media marketing, SMS messaging, and internet ad content.  The survey of over 62,000 online Americans and 20,000 online Europeans finds consumers on both sides of the pond place the least amount of trust in social media marketing, mobile messaging, and internet ad content.
Highlights: U.S. trust in social media ads (15%), text messages from companies or brands (9%), and ads received via mobile apps (12%)  are ranked at the bottom, along with push-marketing banner ads (10%) and email promotions (18%).

The Art of Making Magazines

If you're reading this, it's a safe bet you read magazines. Technically, you may even be reading one now—though I'm not sure if bookforum.com really qualifies. The ".com" might denote precisely what isn't Bookforum. I'm typing onto a computer screen; you're reading from one. No trees have been killed. Are we in a magazine? I'm asking because I don't honestly know.
For now, let's say we aren't. If a magazine still is what it's been for almost three centuries—an ink-on-paper "storehouse" of writing, published on a regular schedule—then the "media industrial revolution" (to use Tina Brown's awkward phrase) is surely in the process of rendering many of our magazines obsolete. Seen historically, The Art of Making Magazines—a collection of twelve lectures by esteemed editors, proofreaders, designers, and writers delivered over the last decade to graduate students at the Columbia School of Journalism—may have barely made its deadline.

Bloomberg Businessweek Expands Delivery Model

Bloomberg Businessweek, which since December 2010 has been partnering with various newspaper publishers and other delivery services to hand deliver the weekly magazine, is partnering with Gannett Inc. to make alternate delivery available in 15 additional U.S. markets. 
An alternative to U.S. Postal Service delivery, the Expedited Morning Delivery service is designed to put Bloomberg Businessweek in the hands of subscribers on the earliest day at the earliest delivery time possible, often one or two days earlier than the U.S. mail.

Lucky Grows Online Community

Lucky Mag Grows Online Community With Eye on Sponsorship Ops:  hrough a user-generated platform, Lucky magazine’s online community now has over 44,000 posts and more than 4,700 contributors that not only helps it to draw readers in, but advertisers as well. “When we think about the Lucky Community, we think of it as a 360-degree program,” says Maura Randall, the brand’s digital managing director. “These women also appear in our print magazine, which is our core piece and their content appears across LuckyMag.com."

26% Own Laptop, Smartphone & Tablet

26% of Americans Own a Laptop, a Smartphone AND a Tablet: Deloitte’s annual "State of the Media Democracy" survey reveals a 160% growth in the number of U.S. consumers who own the trio of tablets, smartphones and laptops, among other findings.