DAYTON, OH—Fox River Paper announced it will acquire Gilbert Paper, located in Menasha, WI, along with selected assets from Mead Corp. The transaction was scheduled to be completed by November 30. The deal allows Fox River Paper to produce and sell all of the Gilbert Paper products as part of a separate branding strategy. Mead will have a 20 percent interest in the combined company. The partnership reportedly enables Fox River to become the leading supplier of premium text, cover and writing papers for the U.S. marketplace. "This is an acquisition that makes sense for Fox River Paper," says Robert C. Buchanan, the company's chairman. "Gilbert Paper's
STAMFORD, CT—The long-awaited paper merger has finally become a reality. Only the participants are a bit surprising. No, Weyerhaeuser did not acquire Willamette. That should take a while. And it wasn't International Paper and Stora Enso (see Paper Mill Watch), which for now is only a rumor. How about Mead Corp. and Westvaco Corp.? On August 29 the companies jointly announced a $3 billion merger, with a combined annual revenues total of $8 billion. The newly created company will be called MeadWestvaco Corp. and will be headquartered here. The move essentially launches MeadWestvaco from mid-sized player into worldwide competition with IP and Georgia-Pacific.
STAMFORD, CT—While a report in an August edition of the Swedish business daily Dagens Industri indicated that International Paper and Stora Enso were in merger talks that would create the largest worldwide paper concern at $40 billion, it seemed unlikely to happen any time soon. Citing unnamed sources, Dagens Industri reported that talks have been ongoing for the past year. Both IP, based here, and Stora Enso, with headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, and Stockholm, Sweden, refused to comment on the report, calling it a market rumor. A merger between the two paper giants is an attractive concept. IP is the worldwide leader in terms of sales
Peter Doyle of Action Printing in Fond du Lac, WI, and I have concluded that printers use job costing simply for the purpose of pricing jobs. Most don't do post-production variance analysis or compare actual results with estimates. Nor do they do any variance analysis comparing actual job costs with General Ledger results. If they did, the variances would be devastating. Maybe they did so a time or two in the past but, because we're so frustrated by the differences, they just toss a dust cover over that "elephant in the living room." So why do we persist in using job cost estimates
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Mañana Man, Harris DeWese, took his formidable hulk to a nutritionist on June 28, 2001. This trained professional somehow motivated El Porko to embark on a diet based on six small meals daily and no more than 1,700 calories. She also persuaded him to exercise one hour daily. Harris has lost 50 pounds, and now will answer only to "Studmuffin."
BY MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ Over the last quarter century Specifications for Web Offset Publications, or SWOP (www.swop.org), has become a major factor in the success of the publication industry in the United States and a widely recognized acronym around the world. This has been accomplished in a diverse business and technical environment by means of reasonable specifications put forth by a group of dedicated volunteers. These volunteers understand that the printing industry is a manufacturing business which, like other manufacturers, can streamline its production process when the input of information is standardized. SWOP specifications help everyone in the production chain—from advertisers to prepress
Commercial printers convert paper for customers for many types of jobs: books, pamphlets, newspapers, business forms, catalogs, lists, leaflets, magazines, posters, bibles, hymnals, greeting cards, programs, calendars, albums. There are thousands of printers throughout the world, from Helsinki to Auckland, from Vladivostok to Capetown, from Beirut to Hong Kong. No two print jobs are identical, no two print shops are the same, and the needs of no two print customers are exact counterparts. The basic economic problem of printers is pricing their conversion service for hundreds of different jobs using technology that is shifting—even as we write. Price is what customers will
This is the PRINT 01 edition of Printing Impressions. Extra copies of Printing Impressions will be distributed at the Chicago show to thousands of people who walk through the McCormick Place exhibition halls. Some of these attendees may not be regular readers of the magazine or this column.
Paper prices and production drop as a slow U.S. economy continues to plague suppliers. BY CAROLINE MILLER A flagging U.S. economy, an increase in offshore paper and the never-ending merger and acquisition dance among paper producers is continuing to keep the price of paper low, reports NAPL Chief Economist Andrew Paparozzi. In his latest survey of printers, 72.5 percent of those polled responded that paper prices are stable. However, what is more interesting is the growing number of printers that are reporting falling paper prices. In June 2001, 18.5 percent indicated prices were falling. That number has increased progressively from last summer when
STAMFORD, CT—Only weeks after announcing that 3,000 jobs would be eliminated from its domestic work force, International Paper reported that it would be letting another 655 employees go in a move that coincides with the plan to indefinitely shut down production capacity of 670,000 tons within its containerboard and coated papers businesses. Three paper machines at its Savannah, GA, mill and one at its Hudson River mill in Corinth, NY, will be shut down indefinitely. The shutdowns will result in reductions of approximately 610,000 tons of the company's U.S. containerboard capacity (12 percent) and 60,000 tons of its coated freesheet capacity (7.5 percent). "These are difficult
