The Burnaby, B.C., forestry company Interfor has purchased a minority interest in GreenFirst Forest Products in a $56-million deal.
GreenFirst, based in Vancouver, B.C., is the new owner of four lumber mills and one paper mill in northeastern Ontario.
That includes sawmills in Chapleau, Cochrane, Hearst and Kapuskasing, as well as a newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, which it acquired from Rayonier Advanced Materials for US$235 million, in cash and shares, last August.
Earlier this month, GreenFirst announced it would restart a decommissioned paper line at the Kapuskasing facility, producing specialized paper packaging produced with 100 per cent recovered wood.
The announcement came with $1.2 million in provincial funding and the promise of 45 new jobs.
Through this most recent deal, Interfor will acquire about 16.2 per cent of GreenFirst, or 28,684,433 common shares of the company.
“This acquisition was made for investment purposes and builds upon, and is complementary to, Interfor’s recent expansion into eastern canada through the acquisition of EACOM Timber Corporation in February 2022,” Interfor said in a May 2 news release.
With that transaction, worth $490 million, Interfor acquired sawmills in Ear Falls, Elk Lake, Gogama, Nairn Centre, and Timmins, along with an engineered wood plant in Sault Ste. Marie.
Interfor is one of the world’s largest forest products companies, with an annual lumber capacity of roughly 5 billion board feet.