NewPage Corp.

Verso Paper has announced that two of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Verso Paper Holdings and Verso Paper, have amended the terms of their previously announced exchange offer and consent solicitation with respect to their outstanding 11 3/8 percent Senior Subordinated Notes due 2016 (the "Old Subordinated Notes" and, the related exchange offer, the "Subordinated Notes Exchange Offer").

On July 30, Verso Paper shareholders will vote on proposals key to its acquisition of NewPage, reported the Bangor Daily News. The $1.4 billion purchase would have a significant impact on employment in Maine, creating jobs for about one-third of Maine’s paper millworkers at Verso’s mills in Bucksport and Jay and NewPage’s Rumford mill, the newspaper said.

Two wholly owned subsidiaries of Verso Paper, Verso Paper Holdings and Verso Paper, have launched debt exchange offers. Completing the exchange offers is an important step toward Verso's acquisition of NewPage, which, pending antitrust clearance and the exchange offers closing, is still expected to close in the second half of 2014. At present, holders of 54 percent of second lien notes have signed a support agreement.

The stakes are high for the nation's biggest paper-making state: The ownership uncertainties have cropped up at a precarious moment when demand for coated printing-grade paper is on the latest leg of a sharp multiyear, digitally driven decline, sparking speculation of a renewed round of mill shutdowns.

Verso Paper this year announced it wants to acquire NewPage Holdings in a deal that would combine the two biggest coated paper producers in North America—raising questions about what the merged company would do with its new excess capacity.

Verso Paper plans to consolidate its existing West Chester, OH, office and the NewPage Miamisburg, OH, office into a single Ohio Operations Center. Verso's corporate headquarters will remain in Memphis, TN.

I was enjoying my pastitcio when the conversation turned to Sterling Premium, as it seems to more often than I’d like. In the company of good folks at our local Greek eatery, things had been just fine until that point. I was smothering everything in sight with as many lemons as I could get my hands on, and I’d have been content to discuss anything under the sun. But they wanted to talk Sterling Premium.

Verso Paper and NewPage Holdings have each received a request for additional information from the U.S. Department of Justice (the "DOJ") in connection with Verso's proposed acquisition of NewPage. The DOJ issued the Second Requests pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended ("HSR Act").

The proposed merger of NewPage and Verso Paper may be on the ropes, but it has brought much attention to the oddities of the U.S. market for coated paper.

Though coated-paper companies have the means and the motive to cooperate on pricing, the same is not true for publication printers, even though they have a similar customer base.

The anonymous prosecutor’s comments, The Capitol Forum’s analysis, and my own experience inspired this list of 10 reasons the U.S. market for coated paper is prone to collusion, both legal and illegal:

NewPage Corp. has added two new sheet sizes—29.5x20.75 text and 20.75x29.5 cover stocking—to its economy digital coated paper brand, Blazer Digital, specifically for HP Indigo 10000 digital presses.

NewPage Holdings has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, NewPage Corp., closed on financing consisting of a new $750 million term loan facility led by Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and a new $350 million ABL Facility led by Barclays Bank PLC. The closing of the Facilities is the first in a series of actions connected with the pending merger announced January 6, 2014 between Verso Paper and NewPage.