GreenFirst to purchase 7 mills from Rayonier for $214M US

GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. says it has struck a deal to buy six lumber mills in Ontario and Quebec and a newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, Ont., for about $214 million US from subsidiaries of Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc.

The lumber mills are located in Chapleau, Cochrane, Hearst and Kapuskasing in Ontario and in Bearn and La Sarre in Quebec.

They say they have the capacity to produce 755 million board feet annually of lumber, wood chips and byproducts.

Itasca Capital Ltd., which bought a Kenora sawmill and related assets for $11.5 million last fall, changed its name to GreenFirst in January to better reflect its main business.

Incoming CEO Rick Doman is the founder of Montreal-based Eacom Timber Corp., which owns sawmills and other forest products operations in eastern Canada.

"As we have done previously with Eacom on the carve-out of sawmill assets of Domtar, our experienced team looks forward to working with the dedicated employees of [Rayonier] to optimize the sawmill assets with a singular focus on maximizing lumber production," he said.