Verso Corporation Completes Buyout of NewPage

Escanaba’s New Page paper mill is now a part of the Verso Corporation. The sale of plant officially closed on Wednesday. The transaction to buy the Escanaba, and other New Page mills, totaled $1.4 billion. The combined company now has eight manufacturing facilities in six U.S. States. The Escanaba mill’s public relations and communications manager, Jackie Pride, says Verso has no plans to close mills at this point and is committed to the coated paper business. The Escanaba mill has 915 employees, which was once owned by Mead Corporation, and then by Mead/Westvaco. Verso already owns a mill in Quinnesec, which is less than an hour away in Dickinson County. Pride says Verso is in the process of looking at both operations but there are currently no plans to merge jobs and services within those two U.P. facilities.