Södra And Other Pulp Increases

Södra will raise the price of its softwood pulp in Europe to US$840.00/tonne, effective January 1st 2013.

Al-Pac announced that it is increasing prices in January of NBHK pulp for NA to US$785.00/tonne and China to US$630.00/tonne. In addition its NBSK in NA will increase to US$900.00/tonne.

Canfor announced it is increasing prices January 1st in NA of NBSK to US$900.00/tonne and in Europe to $840.00/tonne.

Rottneros will increase effective January 1, 2013 its prices on NBSK to US$840.00/tonne

Stora Invests In PulpEye Analyzer

Stora Enso Skoghall Invests in PulpEye Online Analyzer with DotEye Module for Quality Control in CTMP mill: (Sweden) Skoghall Mill installs a PulpEye with fiber, shive, CSF and the new DotEye module. The DotEye module has in a short time been installed in several mills for pulp quality control. PulpEye replaces three old PQM inline analyzers. The PulpEye analyzer will be used for advanced close loop control of the CTMP refiners. PulpEye is based on latest technology and automatically performs accurate measurements at high frequency, which is a necessity to monitor and control the key quality characteristics of the pulp. The result is lower production costs and a more consistent quality.

SCA Divests Pub Paper Mill In Austria

SCA Divests Publication Paper Mill in Laakirchen:  SCA is divesting its Austrian publication paper mill in Laakirchen to Heinzel Group. In conjunction with the divestment, SCA and Heinzel Group have concluded a sales cooperation agreement. In 2011 Laakirchen reported totaled sales of EUR 335m and had just over 500 employees. The annual capacity amounts to more than 500,000 tons. The initial purchase consideration is EUR 100m with a possible maximum additional purchase price of EUR 100m based on a two-year profit-sharing model. In conjunction with the transaction, an impairment of EUR 50m has been recognized, which will be charged to profit in the fourth quarter of 2012. The transaction is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2013 following approval by the relevant authorities.

Fortress Launches 1st Durasafe Paper

Fortress Paper launches first Durasafe paper-polymer-paper composite banknote for Morocco made at mill in Germany: Fortress Paper Ltd. is pleased to announce the launch of the world's first banknote printed on the Company's new Durasafe substrate, an innovative paper-polymer-paper composite produced at its Landqart mill. With the issuance of the new Moroccan 25 Dirhams scheduled for this month, Bank al Maghrib, Morocco's central bank, will become the first in the world to issue a banknote printed on Durasafe®.

The thread, like the watermark, is embedded inside the banknote yet visible behind a one-sided polymer window. It also has a fully transparent polymer window embossed with the King's royal crest.

Catalyst Accepts Bid For Snowflake Mill Assets

Catalyst Paper Accepts Bid for Snowflake Mill Assets: Catalyst Paper announced that it has accepted, subject to US Court approval, a binding bid from an acquisition vehicle organized by Hackman Capital and its affiliates to purchase the assets of the closed Snowflake facility and the shares of Apache Railway for US$13,460,000 and other non-monetary consideration. The buyer intends to continue to operate the Apache Railway as a going concern, and the transaction is supported by the Town of Snowflake and various local interests. "We are pleased that this transaction has progressed efficiently and that the community's interests have been considered through the process and in the successful bid," said President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin J. Clarke. "While paper manufacturing is part of Snowflake's past, this transaction puts the asset on a path to a new future that can continue to bring value to the region."

Resolute To Dismantle Sawmill

Resolute plans to dismantle Oakhill sawmill: CKBW, of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, is reporting that Resolute Forest Products is planning to dismantle the Oakhill sawmill that was not included in the land and asset sale to the province of Nova Scotia. Resolute will dismantle the sawmill and move the equipment out of the province to serve other operations within the company. The Oakhill sawmill has been idled since Bowater Mersey was shut down in June.100 people worked at the sawmill.

B-to-B Content Marketing Spend Is Up

B-to-B Content Marketing Spend Is Up, Despite Mixed Effectiveness:
If content is king, then content marketing is a king’s trade.
According to new research from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, b-to-b marketers, on average, are spending 33 percent of their marketing budgets on content marketing—a 7 percent jump since 2011. About 54 percent say they plan on increasing content marketing spending next year. While more and more b-to-b marketers are turning to content marketing, just 36 percent of respondents say they believe they are effective at content marketing. The data saw a total of 1,416 respondents from North American companies and represented a full range of industries, functional areas and company sizes.

MSLO CEO Lisa Gersh To Resign

MSLO CEO Lisa Gersh to Resign:  Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced this morning that president and CEO Lisa Gersh, after a year and a half on the job, will be stepping down and that the company is already looking for a successor. A timeframe has not been put on the transition period, according to the announcement, but the changeover is signaling a expanded merchandising strategy. The company says it plans to expand into new product categories and add new distribution partners both domestically and internationally. In its fourth quarter earnings call, the company reported merchandising revenue will be 15 percent higher than the same period last year with EBITDA margins of 70 percent.

Mags Respond to Instagram

Magazines Respond to Instagram Terms of Service Fiasco:
Yesterday was not a good day for Instagram. Users and brands slammed the social network for changing its privacy policy and terms of service to include the following language: “You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” Several hours after announcing these changes, the Facebook-owned company back peddled, saying in a blog post that it would not go through with that or other actions.

Getting The Most Out of Action Codes

Getting The Most Out of Action Codes: Integrated action and experience codes within the pages of a magazine are just one of the many ways publishers are connecting print to digital. As the technology gets used more, publishers are identifying what works and what doesn’t. Bonnier’s Popular Science launched PopSci Interactive, which affords users the ability to engage with the print product through a free app. Instead of driving users to a Web page with something like a QR code, the PopSci Interactive app allows users to see specific print content come to life, like a video or photo slideshow.

QuantumDigital Publishes Marketing Guide

QuantumDigital Publishes Real Estate Marketing Guide: QuantumDigital Inc., a direct marketing company making direct mail simple and fast, announced the release of its latest whitepaper, “The One-Minute Real Estate Marketing Guide.” Top-performing real estate professionals have learned that methodical and well-focused postcard direct mail campaigns conducted on a continual basis can generate added commissions. What was discovered was that the agents who distributed an average of 250 direct mail postcards each month over a 12-month period acquired an additional two listings per year. Those supplementary listings resulted in an additional $12,000 in annual commissions.”

Voith Holds Its Own

Voith Holds Its Own in a Difficult Environment: The Voith Group has finished the fiscal year 2012 (ending September 30) satisfactorily in a challenging market environment. The globally active family-owned company increased its Group sales by 2 percent to EUR 5.7 billion compared to the record value of the previous year. All key figures are positive, although on a lower level than in the past year. Despite the declining sales for graphic paper machines in the Group Division Voith Paper, Voith was able to generate one of the best operational results in the history of the Group.

Two Austin Printing Firms Combine Operations

Two Leading Austin Printing Firms Combine Operations: Nationwide Argosy Solutions and The Whitley Group announce the combining of Cerqa LLC, a division of Nationwide, with The Whitley Group, a leading Austin, TX-based graphic-communications firm. TWG’s services include digital printing, sheetfed offset printing, fulfillment and database marketing. Cerqa is Nationwide’s largest fulfillment, small- and large-format digital, offset and ad-specialty distribution division in the southern U.S. region. The combined company will be named The Whitley Group (TWG). “Combining TWG and Cerqa is a great opportunity to build on our individual strengths by offering our customers a broader platform of services,” said Karl Kluetz, president of Cerqa. “We are pleased to have our teams come together to deliver full-service solutions to our significant customer base.”