Owner of Duluth paper mill files for bankruptcy

• NewPage

Plumes of steam billow in the wind from the NewPage paper mill in Duluth. NewPage plans to sell a closed paper mill in Kimberly, Wis. (File / News Tribune)

Talk about it

Ohio-based NewPage Corp., which owns the West Duluth paper mill and is the largest North American maker of coated papers, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday.

NewPage had $3.4 billion in assets and $4.2 billion in debt as of June 30, according to the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Del. The company was bought by New York-based Cerberus Capital Management LP in January 2005 but has been losing money since 2006.

It’s not clear what impact the bankruptcy will have on the Duluth mill, which had about 250 workers in 2010.

“We strongly believe that the court-supervised restructuring we began today is the most effective means of strengthening our financial position,” NewPage Chief Executive Officer George F. Martin said in a statement Wednesday.

Net sales of $3.6 billion in 2010 made NewPage the largest producer of paper for newspapers, commercial printing, magazines and coupons in North America, the company said in its quarterly report. Mills in Duluth, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nova Scotia produce more than 4 million tons of paper annually.

The company is based in Miamisburg, Ohio.

Higher prices for wood, chemicals and pulp, combined with reduced demand for its products, hurt results in the most recent quarter, the company said in a statement Aug. 15. Losses were $132 million for the three months ended June 30 because of higher commodity costs and lower demand from North American catalog manufacturers and magazine publishers, NewPage said.

Tags: news, money, business, duluth