Ernst & Young, the Monitor of the CCAA proceedings, announced that Stern Partners’ Pacific West Commercial has won the bid to potentially buy the NewPage Port Hawkesbury mill, which went into bankruptcy in September. Four bidders, two of whom were anonymous but purportedly were going to close the mill, were among the finalists. Both Pacific West Coast and Paper Excellence (and APP company) were understood to be planning to keep the mill, or at least parts of it, operating. West Coast Commercial, now the sole bidder, has said it will not restart the newsprint paper machine, but plans, pending negotiations with Nova Scotia Power (electricity prices) and unions (labor costs), to run the 400,000 short tons per year Supercalendered PM. NewPage Port Hawkesbury is asking the governing court, on January 18, to extend the proceedings deadline until March 30 to give the company time to meet the conditions of the sale. The Natural Resources Minister, Charlie Parker, announced that the province intends to keep the mill ready to restart, which is expected to cost up to $5 million, through March. It plans to recover the cost through the sale of harvested wood.
Ronald Stern, the president and founder of Stern Partners, a private BC investment firm, is also the president and CEO of Alberta Newsprint Co. and co-owner of The Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun. His Belgravia Paper Company owns the former Simpson Paper mill, a coated woodfree producer, in West Linn, Oregon. Stern Partners, through Belgravia, has been involved in other paper operations in the past, including Pasadena Paper (now closed) and St. Mary’s (now owned by a different investment group and just recently in receivership). Alberta Newsprint is a running newsprint mill.
