Wausau is busy fending off the most
high-profile hostile
corporate battle Wisconsin has seen in years. Manhattan-based hedge fund
Starboard Value LP acquired the largest single stake in Wausau in 2011 and
since then has pressured the company to break itself up.
Pressure from Starboard last year prompted
Wausau to shut its oldest mill in the village of Brokaw, the mill that founded
the company in 1899. Starboard's pressure also compelled Wausau to make an abrupt
announcement in January that it will sell its remaining mills in the
Midwest, including Rhinelander, Mosinee and a third across the state line in
Brainerd, Minn.Wausau barely gave itself five weeks to find prospective buyers, however, before it made an equally abrupt announcement: It will close the Minnesota mill. Nor has it said yet that it has found buyers for its two remaining Wisconsin mills.
