Industry | Pulp and Paper |
---|---|
Founded | 2006 |
Successor | Billerud North America |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Robert A. Kreizenbeck |
Products | pulp, paper and process industries |
Number of employees | 1700 (2021) |
Parent | Billerud AB |
Website | www |
Verso Corporation, now Billerud Americas Corporation, was a North American producer of coated papers including coated groundwood, coated freesheet, and specialty products. The company restructured in 2016 following Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Verso Corporation operated two paper mills in the U.S. In 2021, the company had approximately 1,700 employees. [1]
In March 2022, the Swedish company BillerudKorsnäs completed its acquisition of Verso for $825m. [2]
The company was formed in August 2006 when Apollo Global Management purchased the coated and supercalendered paper business from International Paper. [3] [4] In April 2008, Verso conducted an initial public offering and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. [5] In January 2015, Verso completed its acquisition of NewPage Holdings. [6]
In 2008, Verso received the Environmental and Energy Achievement Award from the American Forest and Paper Association for its work with the Bucksport Environmental Innovation Partnership. [7]
In 2010, Verso received the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) President's Award for its partnership efforts to promote sustainable forest management principles and initiatives in Maine. [8]
In 2015, Verso Paper's Quinnesec Mill was awarded the Michigan Voluntary Protection Program (MVPP) Star award by the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) for the fifth time. [9]
Verso Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 26, 2016. [10] Six months later, the company emerged from bankruptcy after restructuring and reducing its debt by $2.4 billion. [11] As of January 2017, the company moved its headquarters from Memphis, Tennessee to Miamisburg, Ohio in a consolidation of offices as the company set a goal of reducing its overhead expenses by 10% annually. [12]
In January 2017, B. Christopher DiSantis was appointed as chief executive officer (CEO) and a director of Verso effective as of February 1, 2017. [12] [13] DiSantis resigned in April 2019 and Leslie Lederer was appointed as interim CEO. [14] At the end of April 2019, Verso gave two months notice of the impending closure of its mill in Luke, Maryland. [15]
On June 9, 2020, Verso announced a plan to idle its US paper mills in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota indefinitely by late July 2020. The closure was due to the decline in demand for graphic paper and reduced use of print advertising in various industries during the coronavirus pandemic. [16] According to the company, a small number of employees will be kept on afterwards for an unknown time until remaining stock is sold. Between the two paper mills, about 1,000 employees are expected to be laid off, with 900 of those at the Wisconsin Rapids Mill. [17] In January 2021, Verso announced that it no longer planned on restarting its paper mill in Duluth, citing a decrease in demand as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. [18]
In April 2021, Verso reached a settlement over lawsuits regarding pollution in the Potomac River from the defunct Luke Paper Mill. As part of the settlement, Verso agreed to identify the sources and extent of the contamination and create a comprehensive plan to clean it, as well as pay $650,000 to the state of Maryland. [19]
In December 2021, Swedish pulp and paper company BillerudKorsnäs announced a takeover of Verso, which was completed in 2022. [20]
In January 2022, The state of Michigan announced a $244,451 settlement with Verso Corporation over national pollutant discharge elimination system violations at the company’s Escanaba Paper Mill [21] which resulted in fish being killed in the Escanaba River downstream of the mill.
Luke is a town in Allegany County, Maryland, United States, located along the Potomac River just upstream of Westernport. Known originally as West Piedmont, the town is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 85 as of the 2020 census.
Wisconsin Rapids is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, Wisconsin. The population was 18,877 at the 2020 census. The city also forms one of the core areas of the United States Census Bureau's Marshfield-Wisconsin Rapids Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Wood County and had a 2020 population of 74,207.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes and Huggies disposable diapers and baby wipes.
The International Paper Company is an American pulp and paper company, the largest such company in the world. It has approximately 56,000 employees, and is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.
MeadWestvaco Corporation was an American packaging company based in Richmond, Virginia. It had approximately 23,000 employees. In February 2006, it moved its corporate headquarters to Richmond. In March 2008, the company announced a change to start using "MWV" as its brand, but the legal name of the company remained MeadWestvaco.
Domtar Corporation is an American company that manufactures and markets wood fiber-based paper and pulp product. The company operates pulp and paper mills in Windsor, Quebec, Dryden, Ontario, Kamloops, British Columbia, Ashdown, Arkansas, Hawesville, Kentucky, Plymouth, North Carolina, and Marlboro County, South Carolina. While the company operated independently for several decades with listing on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges, the company was acquired by Paper Excellence in November 2021 and has since operated as a subsidiary.
PotlatchDeltic Corporation is an American diversified forest products company based in Spokane, Washington.
Shopko was a chain of department stores based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. All locations closed on June 23, 2019, with the exception of the Shopko Optical locations, which continue to operate.
Beetham is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, situated on the border with Lancashire, 6 miles (10 km) north of Carnforth. It is part of the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,724, increasing at the 2011 census to 1,784.
William G. Luke was an American businessman who founded the West Virginia Pulp & Paper Company, the forerunner of Meadwestvaco Corporation, in 1888 at Piedmont, West Virginia and Luke, Maryland, United States.
NewPage was a leading producer of printing and specialty papers in North America with $3.1 billion in net sales for the year ended December 31, 2012. NewPage was headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, and owned paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. These mills have a total annual production capacity of approximately 3.5 million tons of paper.
Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. The mills mostly produce magazine paper and newsprint.
The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., commonly known as Elder-Beerman, was an American chain of department stores founded in 1883 and whose last stores closed in 2018. The chain, based primarily in the Midwestern United States, was composed of 31 stores in eight states at the time of its liquidation in 2018, and peaked around 2003 with 68 stores and $670 million in annual sales.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, including $372 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capital, hedge funds, non-performing loans, and collateralized loan obligations, $80.7 billion invested in private equity, and $46.2 billion invested in real assets, which includes real estate and infrastructure. The company invests money on behalf of pension funds, financial endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors. Since inception in 1990, private-equity funds managed by Apollo have produced a 24% internal rate of return (IRR) to investors, net of fees.
The Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad is a Class III shortline railroad that operates 347 miles (558 km) of track in Northeastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Its main line runs 208 miles (335 km) from Rockland, Michigan, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and it also owns various branch lines and out-of-service track. In 1897, the Escanaba River Company built a seven-mile (11 km) railroad from Wells, Michigan to tap a large hardwood timber stand at LaFave’s Hill. In 1898, the company name was changed to the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railway (E&LS).
Consolidated Papers, Inc. (CPI) was a paper manufacturer headquartered in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. It was incorporated as the Consolidated Water Power Company on 16 July 1894. Over time it expanded to include operations in Biron, Stevens Point, Whiting, Appleton and Port Arthur, Ontario. The company was an innovator in the production of coated paper. In 2000, the company was bought by the Finnish company Stora Enso. The former Consolidated paper mills were sold in 2007 to NewPage, which was in turn acquired by Verso in 2015.
Great Northern Paper Company was a Maine-based pulp and paper manufacturer that at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s operated mills in Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, and Wisconsin and produced 16.4% of the newsprint made in the United States. It was also one of the largest landowners in the state of Maine.
Billerud AB is a Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer with headquarters in Solna, Sweden. The company simplified its name from BillerudKorsnäs to Billerud after the acquisition of Verso 2022, an American producer of coated paper. Billerud has nine production facilities in Sweden, Finland and the USA with around 5,800 employees in over 13 countries.
The Wisconsin & Michigan Railway (W&M) was incorporated October 26, 1893, under the general laws of Wisconsin for the purpose of constructing, maintaining, and operating a railroad as described in its articles of incorporation.
Verso Corporation (NYSE: VRS) today announced it will permanently close its paper mill in Luke, Maryland...