Great Northern Paper Company Timeline

Bowater Corp. of South Carolina purchases the original GNP mills, timberland, and other Maine assets from Georgia-Pacific for $300 million.

Bowater sells nearly 1 million acres of GNP timberland to J.D. Irving for $220 million and an additional 656,000 acres to an Alabama Investment company for $155 million.

Inexcon, a Canadian consulting firm, buy Bowater’s Maine holdings for $250 million.

Inexcon raises funds for a $140 million modernization, much of it in the Millinocket mill, using remaining timberland as collateral.

GNP sells 41,000 acres of timberland to The Nature Conservatory and places an additional 200,000 acres under conservation easement in exchange for a $50 million contribution to company debts.

Inexcon sells GNP’s hydroelectric system to a Canadian energy conglomerate for $156.5 million.

Hydro system sold to Brascan Corp. and renamed Great Northern Energy.

GNP files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Brascan purchases GNP assets for $103 million, renames the company Katahdin Paper, and forms Katahdin Paper, LLC.

Brookfield Asset Management purchases Katahdin Paper Company

Katahdin Paper Co. announces that it will be increasing pulp production in East Millinocket and pumping more pulp to Millinocket to offset the closure of a Canadian pulp mill.

Fraser Papers, Inc. fails in an attempt to buy Katahdin Paper Co., LLC from Brookfield Asset Management for $80 million, and company officials say they are confident the mill will be running profitably within a year.

Katahdin Paper, LLC announces plans to hire 200 new workers to replace as many as 300 older workers expected to retire from the East Millinocket and Millinocket mills over the next five years.

Katahdin Paper, LLC announces that unless it can find an alternative energy source it will close its Millinocket paper mill effective July 28.

Brookfield Asset Management announces the closure of Katahdin Paper, LLC’s  Millinocket Mill, idling 208 workers. The company cites high oil costs as a leading reason for its decision to shutter the mill.

Fraser Paper Co. was sold to the newly formed Twin Rivers Paper Co.

Brookfield Asset Management shuts down the East Millinocket mill after negotiations breakdown with a potential buyer of Katahdin Paper, LLC. More than 450 workers are idled.

Governor Paul LePage announces the GNP parent company Cate Street Capital of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has consummated negotiations with former parent company Brookfield Asset Management of Toronto and purchased in escrow the East Millinocket and Millinocket paper mills for an undisclosed amount. The final sale occurs later in September.

The reopened mill in East Millinocket begins producing newsprint under new GNP management, employing 217 workers.

GNP announced it will raze the building on the idled Millinocket mill site to create an industrial park.

East Millinocket mill ceases production because of what GNP officials term high production costs and poor market conditions. The shutdown is expected to last up to 16 weeks while the company creates a new business plan.

GNP lays off 212 of 256 workers at its idled mill in East Millinocket. The company says layoffs are not expected to last longer than six months.

The IRS files liens against GNP’s Millinocket and East Millinocket holdings seeking $2.48 million in unpaid corporate income taxes.

A Maine Superior Court justice rules that Northern Construction Services of Glenburn can schedule an auction of the East Millinocket paper mill to recoup more than $240,000 owed by GNP. Ninety days later, an auction is scheduled for October 15.

Millinocket files a lien against GNP seeking $2.24 million in delinquent tax payments.

The No. 11 paper machine in GNP’s defunct Millinocket mill is sold at auction, along with other equipment, for approximately $2.5 million.

GNP issues federally mandated layoff notices to workers at its idled East Millinocket mill. The federal Workers Adjustment and Restraining Notification Act requires most employers with 100 or more employees to provide notification to workers 60 calendar days before plant closings and mass layoffs expected to last six months or more.

Great Northern Paper Co. LLC files for bankruptcy in a Delaware court, listing more than 1,000 creditors and $50 million in debt. On the same day, three companies filed a petition in a Bangor court seeking to force the company into involuntary bankruptcy.

A demolition company working for the mill owner used explosives to take down the two remaining smoke stacks at the Great Northern Paper Co. mill.

For many people, the smoke stacks represented the prosperous mill town that produced paper for more than a hundred years. Today, the stacks and all the memories that go with them were gone in just a matter of seconds.

Our Katahdin, a non-profit 501-c3 purchased Cate Street Capital holdings in Millinocket.