RISI Puts Key Moves on Paper

RISI, a Boston-based global forest products industry information provider, has announced an agreement with Questex Media, Newton, Mass., to take over publishing of Official Board Markets (OBM or the “Yellow Sheet”) from Questex. As well, RISI has announced it will take over the price benchmarking service (Bench$mart) and forecasting service (Fore$ight) from Atlanta-based consulting firm Moore & Associates.

“Bringing these products together under one roof with RISI’s existing forecast and price-reporting capabilities creates an opportunity for us to help the North American recovered paper and containerboard markets operate more efficiently through better market information and price reporting,” says Mike Coffey, CEO of RISI. “On the recovered paper side, we are working together with industry expert Bill Moore to analyze current challenges and conduct an industry dialogue to ensure a healthy system for reporting prices.”

Bill Moore, president of Moore & Associates, says, “No company is better equipped than RISI to bring about the changes that are needed in this market. Their track record for independence, professionalism and transparency are what led me to partner with them to help build a better price reporting system.”

Moore also points to RISI’s global presence. “RISI has a global reach, and that was attractive to me. RISI can help improve our already strong benchmarking service and bring an improved product to the market.” RISI also operates offices throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

RISI will not make immediate changes to OBM, Bench$mart or Fore$ight, but will instead initiate a dialog within the recovered paper and containerboard industries on how price and cost reporting can be improved, says Todd Petracek, RISI’s vice president of news, markets and prices.

“We are bringing an unprecedented group of resources to bear to help make our price coverage more transparent, accurate and reliable,” says Petracek. “Over the next three months we will solicit the feedback of players in the industry on our plans. We will then announce the final plan and a timetable for implementing our improvements.”

Those seeking more information or wishing to participate in the dialog on recovered paper and containerboard price discovery can visit www.risi.com/rcp-ctb.

Along with OBM, RISI is also taking over the quarterly magazine Paperboard Packaging from Questex. OBM is a weekly publication that publishes news and prices for the containerboard, boxboard, recovered paper and corrugated sheets markets.

Fore$ight is a quarterly price forecasting service for old corrugated containers (OCC)/ mixed paper (MP), #7/8 old newspapers (ONP)/#10 old magazines (OMG), and sorted office papers (SOP)/coated book stock (CBS). Bench$mart is a twice-yearly program that aggregates actual mill recovered paper purchase prices into regional averages and ranges that let individual mills benchmark their procurement performance.