| JANUARY | American Pad & Paper Co., Dallas, TX, announced on January 7, that it has signed a purchase agreement to acquire Shade/Allied, Inc., Green Bay, WI, for $51.5 million. The acquisition is AP&P’s seventh since 1992 (second acquisition in six months). |
| FEBRUARY | Quebecor Printing (USA) Corp. announced this month the acquisition of assets of Petty Co., Inc., and the formation of Quebecor Direct, a direct marketing printing group that will integrate the company’s operations servicing the direct marketing industry. |
| MARCH | Avenor Inc. and Repap Enterprises Inc. announced that they have reached an agreement amending terms of the merger agreement originally announced in December of last year. |
| APRIL/MAY | Poly-Pak Industries, Inc., Melville, NY, announced the purchase of a substantial amount of extrusion and bag making equipment formerly owned by Bag Packaging and Luanne Extrusion, Roselle, NJ. |
| Bunzl Distribution USA, St. Louis, MO, announced it expanded its disposables distribution business in Canada with the acquisition of RAP-ID Paper and Restaurant Supply Limited, a distributor with eight location in Western and Central Canada. | |
| Intertape Polymer Group, a manufacturer of packaging products, recently acquired Tape, Inc., a producer of water activated and pressure sensitive tape products. | |
| JUNE | Alling and Cory, Rochester, NY and Antietam Paper Company announced in late May that they have signed an agreement in which Alling and Cory would purchase certain assets of Antietam and assume certain obligations. |
| JULY | The New Group’s acquisition of Plainwell Paper Co. from Simpson Paper became official on June 16. |
| West Coast Paper Co., Seattle, WA, recently acquired Idaho Pacific Paper Co., a Boise, Idaho-based distributor of printing papers, packaging and sanitary supplies. | |
| International Paper announced plans to sell more than $1 billion in assets. IP expects this should reduce its pulp and uncoated paper capacity by at least 400,000 tons. | |
| Consolidated Papers announced it plans to buy Repap USA, Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary of Repap Enterprises. | |
| Simpson Paper Co. announced that it will sell its coated and specialty paper business, while retaining its Tacoma Kraft subsidiary (packaging papers), and its Simpson Timber Co. subsidiary. | |
| AUGUST | Trivest, Inc., Miami, FL, has acquired a controlling interest in Jet Plastica Industries, Inc., (facilities in PA and CA) a manufacturer of injection molded disposable plastic cutlery, tumblers, dinnerware and extruded drinking straws. |
| West Coast Paper Co., Seattle, WA, recently acquired McGinnis Independent Paper Co. of Spokane, WA (and McGinnis’ other facility in Clarkston, WA). | |
| Industrial Paper Corp., Atlanta, GA, acquired Southeast Packaging and Supply Co. of Marietta, GA, on March 31. | |
| Unisource Worldwide, Inc., Berwyn, PA, announced that in July it had completed 10 acquisitions with annualized revenues exceeding $100 million. The 10 companies are: Coast Wide of Alaska, Commercial Garza Reyna, Technical Packaging, Peak Packaging, Janco-United Inc., Valteck/Expert Packaging, Foremost Corrugated Co., Inc., Sunland Sanitary Supply, Inc., Santa Rosa Paper Co., and Adelco Supply Co., Inc. | |
| SEPTEMBER | Sealed Air Corp. and W.R. Grace announced in mid-August that they will combine Grace’s packaging business with Sealed Air. The transaction is expected to be completed in early 1998. |
| Fort Howard and James River received approval from stockholders as well as regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe, clearing all hurdles to the merger of the two companies. The new Fort James began trading on the NY Stock Exchange on August 14. | |
| Unisource Worldwide, Inc., Berwyn, PA, last month acquired National Sanitary Supply (NSS) and announced the sale of its Grocery Supply Systems Division to Bunzl plc. | |
| In early June, Perkins Paper, Inc., of Taunton, MA, acquired the small-wares division of Paramount Restaurant Supply Corp. of Providence, RI. | |
| OCTOBER | The UPM-Kymmene Corp. of Finland (Europe’s leading paper maker) agreed earlier this month to buy the Blandin Paper Co., Grand Rapids, MN, for $650 million from Fletcher Challenge Canada. Ltd. |
| Wausau Paper Mills Co., Brokaw, WI, announced in September that it will acquire Mosinee Paper Corp. for stock valued at approximately $477 million. The companies state that the new company will be called Wausau-Mosinee Paper Corp., and will be based in Mosinee, WI. | |
| Unisource Worldwide acquired Turnquist, Inc., Minneapolis, MN. Turnquist had $96 million in revenues in 1996 as a distributor of printing and imaging paper and supply systems. | |
| Union Camp Corp., Wayne, NJ, announced in late September that it will acquire Phoenix Display and Packaging Corp., a marketing, merchandising and point-of-purchase display company based in West Deptford, NJ. | |
| ResourceNet International, Covington, KY, recently acquired Global Standard Paper Co., which provides cut-size papers to the in-plant shops of small and medium Fortune 1,000 companies, copy shops and other businesses in the New York area. | |
| Quebecor Printing (USA) Corp., Boston, MA, recently sold Specialties Bindery, Inc. to St. Lawrence Corp. | |
| NOVEMBER | Spexel Inc., Montreal, has purchased Domtar’s specialty and security fine paper business. |