Katahdin Paper mills could be sold
A California investment group could become the new owners of the Katahdin Paper Co. LLC mills in East Millinocket and Millinocket, the latter of which has been shuttered since 2008.
Meriturn Partners of San Francisco has signed a letter of intent to buy the two mills from Brookfield Asset Management for an undisclosed price, according to the Bangor Daily News. Lee Hansen, a partner with the group, told the paper Meriturn will begin meeting with local government entities, union representatives and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to iron out the deal, which has an April 29 deadline. The purchase could restore as many as 150 jobs at the Millinocket mill, which shut down in September 2008 because of high oil prices. Brookfield Asset Management's efforts to restart the mill with a biomass boiler have not been successful. The East Millinocket mill employs about 450 people.
Rosaire Pelletier, Gov. Paul LePage's special forest products industry adviser, told the paper that businesses have offered to partner with Meriturn to install and run a biomass boiler at the mill, an operation that could create another few dozen jobs.
Last July, Patriarch Partners -- which bought the former Georgia Pacific facility in Old Town and revamped it as Old Town Fuel & Fiber -- explored buying the two mills, but halted the process for unknown reasons, according to the paper. Former Gov. John Baldacci told the paper that an additional "four or five investors" have expressed interest in buying the properties.
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