Interfor's acquisition spree goes on in the US Southeast and Pacific Northwest

VANCOUVER (Scrap Monster): The Vancouver, B.C-headquartered lumber major, Interfor Corporation has announced fresh bouts of acquisition in the US. The acquisition includes four lumber mills of Simpson Lumber Co LLC in the US. The upfront cost of the deal is estimated at around $95 million.

The acquired lumber facilities are located in Meldrim, G.A., Georgetown, S.C., Longview, Wash., and Commencement Bay, Wash. The annual capacities of the four operations total 750 million board feet. This would raise Interfor’s total capacity by nearly 30% to 3.1 billion board feet per annum. Post acquisition, the US Southeast and Pacific Northwest mills will account for 67% of the company’s total capacity, out of which Southeast capacity will total 1.2 billion board feet and the Pacific Northwest will total 900 million board feet.

According to Interfor, the deal marks another important milestone for the company. All the acquired mills are located relatively near to the company’s existing sawmills in the region. Three out of the four are profitable sawmills. The total production from all the four mills is estimated to be around 555 million board feet during the entire year 2014. Also, the mills generated a combined EBITDA of nearly $19 million during the initial nine-month period of the year.

The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close during Q1 2015.

With a capacity of 2.6 billion board feet, the Vancouver-based company is the fastest growing lumber business in North America.