WISCONSIN RAPIDS, WI (WSAU) — Officials on the Rapids Together Task Force received some surprising and gut-wrenching news on Wednesday when officials from Verso Paper made it known that they are scaling back efforts to sell their Wisconsin Rapids facility due to the current economic climate.
State Senator Patrick Testin, who represents the area, says the news came on a call with Verso during Wednesday’s meeting of the Task Force and left the room stunned. “Everyone on that call was just as shocked as I was. It’s a sudden reversal from where they were just a few weeks ago when they were trying to pursue active buyers.”
Testin says he knows that business decisions must be made but in this case, there are also some 900 families to think of. “The community is being detrimentally impacted. It’s time that we find a new buyer for the mill. But if they don’t want to find a new buyer, then we need some answers.”
The task force has identified a couple of potential buyers for the facility including a cooperative being formed by the Great Lakes Timber Producers which would bring the mill back under local control. He says that option would not only save the jobs of those employed by the mill but also trucking and logging jobs.
“We have upwards of 10,000 logger jobs that are in jeopardy right now because 25% of the timber cut in this state ran through the Rapids mill.
“The Timber Producers Cooperative is a serious potential buyer for this mill,” added Testin in a written statement.
Representative Scott Krug of Nekoosa also issued a written statement saying “Verso closed the mill and said it’s for sale. Well, the Timber Cooperative is a likely, informed and interested potential buyer. What is it going to take to get this done? What assurances might Verso want? When might they be willing to move on this?”
Verso did release a statement to WAOW TV on Wednesday which reads: “Verso made the decision to idle the Wisconsin Rapids Mill at the end of July 2020 due to extremely challenging business conditions and the accelerated decline in graphic paper demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Verso has been working with local government, community leaders, and a third party company to explore viable and sustainable alternatives for the mill, including marketing it for sale, restarting it if market conditions improve, or closing it permanently. While exploring one of the options — marketing the mill for sale — it became apparent that the current environment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in potential buyers having limited ability to effectively evaluate the mill’s assets, which are complex and difficult to evaluate remotely. Potential buyers with only limited ability to effectively evaluate the mill’s assets are not likely to make an offer that adequately reflects the value of the mill. Because of this situation, we determined that it would be best to postpone any marketing and sales efforts for the mill. Verso will continue to investigate and evaluate options both internally and externally for the mill.”
Testin says there are still some workers at the mill each day to maintain the equipment and make sure it would be functional if and when it comes back online. Should that happen he says the new company would likely need to retrofit the facility in some way to produce a product besides white coated paper, which has seen its demand decrease in recent years.
