Cascades Eyes More U.S. Expansion

Cascades Inc. said it is looking to expand its role in the U.S. market. The announcement came as the company completed its $86 million acquisition of the consumer products division of Plainwell Inc.

"There are two plants of American Tissue Corp. that are now of particular interest to us," Laurent Lemaire, Cascades chief executive, said at a news conference.

"We've carefully inspected American Tissue's assets in New England and we've got to know them well."

A spokesman for Cascades, cautions, that at the present time Cascades is merely speculating about the possibilities of owning any ATC operations. However, he did point out that if American Tissue would decide to put any of its mills on the market Cascades would likely bid for some of the mills.

Over the past several months ATI has been taking machines and mills off line to balance supply and demand, as well as preserve cash.

American Tissue went into voluntary protection last week. Several more pulp and paper mills in New England, including Pulp and Paper of America Inc., are on the block because of energy and other cost pressures and cannot avoid the current wave of industry consolidation, analysts added.

Cascades is the fifth largest tissue producer in North America behind Georgia-Pacific, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and American Tissue. The company consumes more than 2 million tons of recovered fiber a year.