The bidding for Bay State Paper, a Fitchburg, Mass., paper mill that has been in bankruptcy protection this past April, has reportedly closed.
While press reports had Canusa putting in one of the bids on the mill, New York-based company, Koster Industries, along with Global Equipment and Machinery Sales Inc., were the top bidder for the idled mill.
Koster is an industrial auctioneer. Global Equipment is involved in the buying and selling of used paper and converting machinery. Global hopes to working on cleaning up the equipment by next week.
The bankruptcy court made the ruling earlier this week.
Canusa, which was one of the three bidders for the closed mill, was one of the large recovered fiber suppliers to the mill.
In an article in Recycling Today Magazine last year, Bruce Fleming, president of Canusa, noted that his company had developed a marketing arrangement with Bay States, allowing Canusa to both supply the mill with recovered fiber, and market the finished paper.
The mill, which is presently idled, has two paper machines. When it was operational it produced recycled paperboard products.
The bid winners hope to liquidate the assets over the next six months. Among the equipment to be sold are two fourdrinier paper machines, capable of producing 300 tons per day of recycled paperboard.