Resolute Forest Products, a company founded more than 200 years ago and which is the largest in its sector in Quebec, announced yesterday that it had accepted a purchase offer of $3.5 billion.
• Read also: Sale of Resolute Forest Products: the latest in a long series of losses of control
Screenshot, TVA Nouvelles
A rail convoy of goods made in Quebec by Resolute Forest Products en route to Florida.
The buyer is British Columbia firm Paper Excellence, which is controlled by billionaire investors from Indonesia, the Widjaja family.
“I am very aware that our company has more than 200 years of history, but I see it more as a step in our evolution,” argued the big boss of Resolute, Rémi Lalonde, during an interview. telephone with The newspaper.
“We think this is good news for Quebec, for the company, for its employees and for its retirees,” insisted Mr. Lalonde.
Less influence on decisions
Marc-Urbain Proulx, professor of economics at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, is not so convinced.
“For states like Quebec, which have natural resources to sell while trying to obtain a decent rent, this is not such fantastic news because it only strengthens a movement [de consolidation] which takes away the power to express what we want,” he said.
Maintaining jobs
Paper Excellence “plans to retain Resolute’s production sites and employment levels,” the company said in a statement.
Resolute operates several sawmills as well as paper, pulp and wood mills in Quebec. In Saguenay, the company has had seven power stations for decades that allow it to supply electricity, at very low cost, to two of its factories. In Montreal, its head office has approximately 450 employees.
Just a few months ago, Paper Excellence acquired Domtar, another forestry company with deep roots in Quebec, for nearly $4 billion.
Paper Excellence is committed to maintaining Resolute’s head office in Montreal, said Rémi Lalonde.
In addition, given the presence of administrative employees of Domtar in the Quebec metropolis, “Montreal will become an important crossroads” for the buyer, argued the manager.
“We can promise that everything will stay in Montreal… That’s good, but for how long? reacted the economist and former minister Daniel Paillé.
Resolute Forest Products in Brief
- Revenues in 2021: US$3.7 billion
- Net profits in 2021: US$307 million
- Employees : 6521 in North America, including 3924 in Quebec
A company rooted in Quebec soil since 1820
Even if its name is not familiar to everyone, Resolute Forest Products and its many previous incarnations are closely linked to the economic development of several regions of Quebec.
The origins of Resolute date back to 1820, when the British William Price, nicknamed by some “the father of Saguenay”, founded the William Price Company in Quebec. In 1867, three of his sons took over the assets of the lumber trading business and established Price Brothers and Company.
In 1886, William Price III, grandson of William Price, took over the reins of the group, leading it to branch out into the manufacture of newsprint. In 1912, he founded the industrial town of Kénogami, which today is part of Saguenay.
A spectacular head office
At the end of the 1920s, the company had the gigantic Price Building built in Old Quebec, which would become its head office.
In 1974, the Abitibi company, founded in 1914 in Montreal, acquired Price. Over the course of numerous mergers and acquisitions, the group took the names of Abitibi-Price (1979), Abitibi-Consolidated (1997) and AbitibiBowater (2007).
In 2000, the company acquired Montreal-based Donohue for… $7.1 billion.
In 2009, having become insolvent, AbitibiBowater began a legal restructuring which was concluded the following year. In 2011, it changed its name to Resolute Forest Products.
Main holders of cutting rights in Quebec
- Solved (QC): 4,109,750m3
- Arbec (QC): 2,252,000m3
- Interfor (BC): 774,850m3
- West Fraser (BC): 749,500m3
- GreenFirst (ON): 680 200m3