Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Newark Group Announces 5% Increase

The Newark Group (www.newarkgroup.com), a leader in the collection of secondary fibers and the manufacturing and converting of 100% recycled paperboard in the U.S. and Canada, today announced a 5% price increase for all converting products including: tubes, cores, chipboard roll heads, chipboard sheets, laminated paperboard sheets, floor protection, panels, spines, game boards and packaging offerings. This increase will be effective with all orders shipped on or after Monday, July 22, 2013.

IP Faces Dilema with Ticonderoga Pipeline Proposal

In Shoreham last week residents asked some difficult questions of the primary beneficiary of a Vermont Gas Systems pipeline that seeks to cross through the town en route from Middlebury to Ticonderoga, N.Y. The responses caught International Paper in a Catch-22 scenario: the paper company had to represent the need for the lower cost fuel as something so important it might be the difference between staying open or closing, yet when questioned about the plant's fragile long-term viability, plant officials had to suggest that it had a bright future because the hardwood forest that feeds the mill were nearby and relatively rare and such a valuable resource could not found in many places around the world.

NewPage and Omya to Construct PPC Plant, Escanaba

NewPage Corporation (NewPage) and Omya have entered into a long-term supply agreement to build a Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC) plant, located at the NewPage Escanaba paper mill site. The plant will create seven new jobs.
PCC is an essential raw material used in the papermaking process. It lends to key properties such as bulk, opacity, brightness and whiteness. PCC is manufactured using lime and carbon dioxide (CO2).
The Escanaba mill currently purchases PCC from another supplier. With the PCC plant on-site, the mill will save on transportation costs. Lime needed for the PCC manufacturing process will be purchased from the Upper Peninsula.

July 15 Start Up Planned for Monadnock

The Monadnock Paper Mills in Bennington is expecting to be back in business Monday, after a major electrical fire last week knocked out power to the entire building.
A three-alarm electrical fire was reported early Wednesday morning in what Bennington Fire Chief Mike Roina said was the most significant fire in Bennington in his 13 years with the department.
While the fire was contained to the electrical room in the basement of the building, the damage knocked out power to the entire operation. The building had been scheduled to shut down operations later that afternoon to complete a regular summer maintenance, and the mill had intended to start up again by mid-July.

New Owner Plans to Demolish Sartell Mill

A paper mill that has stood on the banks of the Mississippi River for more than a century could soon be coming down.
AIM Development bought the Verso Paper plant in Sartell after an explosion and fire last year. A St. Cloud Times report (http://on.sctimes.com/15nd8lH ) says the company is seeking a permit to begin demolishing the structure.
The Sartell City Council is expected to consider the permit request at its meeting Monday.

FSC, PEFC Joint Statement on Proposed ISO Standard

FSC and PEFC, the two organisations together accounting for some 98% of the world's certified forests and chain of custody certificates, called upon members of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to not support a proposal for an ISO standard to be developed for certified forest products as it stands. 
ISO members have until the end of August to vote on such a proposal. In a joint statement to the ISO members, PEFC and FSC express their "sustained opposition" to the proposal. 
FSC and PEFC state that they "strongly believe that an ISO chain of custody standard would not add value to global efforts to promote sustainable forest management through forest certification......The fundamental principles of PEFC and FSC chain of custody certification are closely aligned, allowing companies to obtain dual certification to both FSC and PEFC in an efficient and straightforward manner at minimal additional costs.... Dividing the supply and production chains results in sub optimal results".

How Cabela's, Others Prep for Peak Selling Season

http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-best-practices/How-Sears,-DSW,-Cabela-s-and-Pier-1-Prep-for-Peak-Selling-Season87296
Cabela's is seeking to further enhance its in-store experience with tests of augmented reality, adding graphics, sounds and even smells of the natural world. With these displays, the outdoors and sporting goods retailer will provide informative graphics and audio that will align with the shopper's field of view. Cabela's is also rolling out a range of mobile technology, including its Outfitter tablet app, mobile kiosks and non-transactional line-busting capabilities.

New Interactive Magazine Puts Print First

The pilot issue of iLove magazine has just been sent to 13,500 carefully-targeted readers, ahead of plans to up the monthly circulation to 700,000.
The fashion and beauty title is the brainchild of Digital Space, which has offices in Northampton and Ilkley. 
The firm has been working in the print-to-mobile arena for a number of years and has produced a variety of cross-media projects with major magazine and newspaper publishers. It has now decided to create its own product. 
"Print, as a mechanism for triggering a response has far greater value than most people put on it," said director Adrian Fleming. "We have taken a piece of print and overlaid the sort of analytical values you’d get on an insightful web page."

M&A Value Highest in More Than a Year

A total of 392 M&A transactions and investments were announced last month in the marketing, media, technology and business information/services industries, according to Petsky Prunier's monthly report on M&A and investment activity. Reported deal value totaled $21.6 billion across all segments, an increase of 7% from $20.2 billion in May, and the highest reported monthly value in more than a year, the investment bank said. 
The number of deals increased 8% from 364 in May, for the fifth consecutive month-over-month rise.

Consumer Attitudes Towards Paywalls Shifting

According to a study by Oxford University’s Reuters Institute Study of Journalism, twice as many consumers are willing to pay for online news content than a year ago, albeit the numbers are still relatively low.
The study, conducted by YouGov, polled 11,000 internet users across nine countries, including the U.S.
Findings: Half of global respondents (42% of American) said they had bought a printed newspaper in the last week, but only 5% said they had paid for digital news in the same time period. This is partly because the majority of online newspapers still do not have paywalls.

Davler Media Buys New York Spaces

 http://www.foliomag.com/2013/davler-media-group-buys-new-york-spaces#.Udxt6lOYyKw
Montvale, New Jersey-based Wainscot Media, which publishes 18 regional magazines, has sold New York Spaces to Davler Media Group. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it includes the magazine, published 9 times per year, its website and its Top 50 Design Gala.
New York Spaces was bolstered by Wainscot's purchase of New York Home from Hour Media back in 2007 when the company folded the latter title into its existing luxury interior design magazine.  

Fewer Magazine Closures, Fewer Launches

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/magazine-closures-slow-so-do-launches-151065
Fewer new magazines are launching. But fewer are folding, too.
Only 97 new print and digital magazines launched in the first half of 2013, down from 133 in the year-ago period, according to figures released today by MediaFinder.com, an online database of U.S. and Canadian publications.
Food and regional titles dominated new launches, with 12 new food magazines including Allrecipes.com, a print spinoff of the popular home cooks website owned by Meredith Corp., a few annuals from Better Homes and Gardens, Edible Milwaukee, along with 10 new regional publications. The luxury trend continued, with the introduction of titles like Haute Time and Tempus and no fewer than three new Hamptons magazines: Beach, Avenue at the Beach and Daily Summer. 
On the bright side, the number of closures declined, to 29 in 1H 2013 from 48 in last year's first half.
Consolidation by Bonnier Corp. and arts and crafts publisher F+W accounted for a number of them. Bonnier shuttered Garden Design in February, and its Parenting and Babytalk titles were folded when they were sold to Meredith in May.

Barnes & Noble CEO Resigns

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/08/news/companies/barnes-noble-ceo/index.htm
Lynch is departing after a three-year tenure in which Barnes & Noble was battered by the shift away from brick-and-mortar bookstores to e-commerce and digital products. 
The company has tried to compete in the tablet market with the likes of Amazon's (AMZN, Fortune 500) Kindle and Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPad, but sales of its Nook tablets have disappointed, falling 34% in the most recent quarter.

Bids for Maxim at $20 Million

http://adage.com/article/media/maxim-magazine-fetch-bids-20-million/243023/
Maxim magazine, the bawdy men's title that went up for sale in March, is fetching some bids of about $20 million, less than a 10th of the price its owners paid six years ago, according to people familiar with its finances. 
Maxim publisher Alpha Media Group, controlled by creditor Cerberus Capital Management, is expected to lose between $3 million and $5 million this year, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential. 

Argos: Catalogs with Touch-Screens

Bertrand Bodson has joined Argos as its first digital director and will oversee the development of the retailer’s website and mobile shopping applications.
Argos, which is owned by Home Retail Group, is investing £300m over the next three years in a bid to revitalise its stores and digital divisions.
This involves replacing the famous laminated catalogues in stores with touch–screen computers, introducing “fast track” queues to collect online orders, offering wi-fi within stores and closing around 75 stores as leases expire.