Firms buy shuttered Madison paper mill, plan to 're-purpose' the site
A joint venture involving companies that specialize in re-purposing shuttered mills has purchased the mill assets of Madison Paper Industries for an undisclosed price.
The acquisition, which closed on Dec. 29, includes the real estate of the main paper mill site as well as all mill equipment.
New Mill Capital Holdings of New York, Perry Videx of New Jersey and Infinity Asset Solutions are the new owners of the Madison paper mill, which stopped production in May, resulting in the layoffs of 214 workers. It was Maine’s fifth major paper mill closure in three years, a trend that contributed to the $1.3 billion decline in the economic impact of Maine's forest products industry, which fell from $9.8 billion in 2014 to $8.5 billion in 2016, according to the Maine Forest Products Council’s most recent analysis.
In a Dec. 30 release announcing their acquisition, the new owners stated they plan “to sell certain mill assets that are no longer usable on the property, as well as demolish some structures that are obsolete.”
“Once that process is complete, the property will be remarketed for alternative industrial uses,” the new owners stated. “Given the site’s abundant supply of both power and natural gas, as well as a clear height of over 50 feet, the property is a uniquely attractive asset for a variety of heavy industries.”
New Mill Capital Holdings, which has acquired more than 11 million square feet of vacant plants since 2011, already is marketing the shuttered Madison mill on its website, describing it as a “550,000 square foot paper mill with most equipment in place.”
New owners' goal: Bring 'new economic life to the property'
Greg Schain, principal of New Mill Capital Holdings, said the new owners plan to work with local and state officials “to identify new uses for the mill site.”
“Bringing new economic life to the property is a key component to this investment for us, and we feel the site’s ample infrastructure and the strong area labor force will be attractive for new industries,” he said in the release announcing the purchase.
Leslie Amoils, president of Infinity Asset Solutions, echoed that sentiment, stating: “Our joint venture specializes in sales and partnerships that put idled industrial assets back to productive use, and that will be our primary focus here as well.”
Infinity Asset Solutions describes itself as “one of the largest providers of disposition services in Canada,” with a portfolio that includes metalworking, machining, fabrications, plastics, printing, food and beverage and forestry industries.
David Goodman, executive vice president of Perry Videx, described the Madison mill and its equipment as having been “maintained extremely well over the years.”
Perry Videx has been selling used industrial equipment since 1932 and describes itself as “the largest stocking dealer of equipment in the chemical pharmaceutical plastics and paper industries.”
“Because most of the mill was built in 1980, both the buildings and equipment assets are among the newest of any shuttered paper mill in the Northeast,” Goodman said.
New Mill Capital has a track record in Maine, having handled the April 2015 auction of biomass refinery assets at shuttered Old Town Fuel and Fiber plant and being involved in the remarketing of the closed Hostess Bakery site in Biddeford that was re-purposed as a FedEx distribution facility in 2016.
New Mill Capital says on its website that the “vast majority” of the vacant plants it has acquired since 2011 were “put back to productive use.”
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