OLD TOWN, Maine — A little more than a month after acquiring a shuttered Old Town mill, a Wisconsin company is gearing up to begin producing pulp there by the end of the week.
Expera Specialty Solutions of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, acquired the assets of the former Old Town Fuel & Fiber pulp mill on Dec. 5 during bankruptcy proceedings in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
“We have some pretty good stuff going on, actually,” Expera spokeswoman Addie Teeters said Wednesday.
“We’ve brought back all of the [ laid-off Old Town Fuel & Fiber] workers back to work, so we’ve got about 180 employees back to work. They’ve all been back since the end of December,” Teeters said.
“Last week, we completed all of the maintenance we needed to do so that we could get things rolling,” she said. “Production is on schedule to begin at the end of this week.”
Duane Lugdon, United Steelworkers Union international representative for Maine, said last month that the new owner and union negotiators had worked out a labor agreement that called for no wage concessions and the same benefits that workers previously had.
“It is extremely encouraging to see the employees at Old Town back at work. They are working hard to get the mill back on its feet.” Lugdon said Wednesday in an email.
“But while this outcome is so positive, and we are so grateful for it, we have to also remember that hundreds of workers in the Maine paper industry remain without work,” he said. “Our industry is in decline due to electronic communications versus paper communications. The solution for Old Town is the growth of Expera, a paper company that is in some very unique niche markets.
“Expera is a great fit for the Old Town mill, and I am confident that with the hard work of the employees it will remain a success story for a long time to come,” he said.
“Our union continues to hope that solutions will be found in those other paper communities around the state as well and put these good people back to work,” he added.
Expera Specialty Solutions created the company Expera Old Town LLC to purchase and run the facility. The newly formed company purchased the buildings, mill equipment, personal property such as trucks and office equipment as well as the land on which the mill is located from Patriarch Partners.
Expera Specialty Solutions owns four mills in Wisconsin, including in Kaukauna, where the company is headquartered, according to information on its website. Kaukauna is 20 miles south of Green Bay.
Expera Specialty Solutions was formed last year, when KPS Capital Partners purchased Thilmany Papers and Wausau Specialty Paper. The company, which makes bags for microwave popcorn, wine labels, candy wrappers and other specialty papers, is short on pulp and must buy it on the open market, according to previously published reports.
The deal was announced Nov. 11, a month after creditors forced Old Town Fuel & Fiber into bankruptcy.
The bankruptcy sale calls for Expera to pay $3.2 million in debts and another $7.3 million in cash that would be split among secured and unsecured creditors.
The $10.5 million deal includes about $817,000 for employee vacation time and paid time-off claims and about $1.1 million in past due property taxes, which does not include what is owed in personal property taxes to the city.
As part of the sale agreement, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Louis Kornreich approved $300,000 for unsecured creditors and excused Patriarch for any additional debt liability.
BDN writer Judy Harrison contributed to this report.