Niagara Falls, New York celebrated 300 new construction jobs and an additional 100 manufacturing jobs at the groundbreaking yesterday for a new, recycled-containerboard mill that was financed in part by GE Capital. The $430 million Greenpac Mill is set to open in the summer of 2013 and is being built and operated by Norampac, a division of Canadian company Cascades, Inc. and other investors. It will manufacture approximately 540,000 short tons of lightweight linerboard a year in Niagara Falls, all of it made with recycled fibers. To help fund the development, construction and operation of Greenpac, GE Capital led the financing of $228.9 million in project finance credit facilities.
Patrick Chaperon, Vice-President for Finance and Administration at Norampac, said, “We are very proud to build a mill with numerous technological advances and systems in place that will have a positive effect on the mill’s environmental performance. For example, the building and the equipment will be designed for optimal energy efficiency, process water will be treated and reused in order to reduce consumption, and a state of the art management system for recycled fibers will be put into operation, just to name a few.”
While GE Capital makes loans everyday to small and medium-sized businesses, project financings usually take longer to develop — anywhere from six months to a year — because of the complexity of constructing and starting up a new facility. Additionally, the Greenpac Mill loan was a cross-border transaction. GE Capital’s US/Canada team with extensive experience in the forest products and other capital intensive, cyclical industries, worked closely with Norampac and Cascades to understand their needs and complete the deal.
From L-R: Ross Nelson, Containerboard Partners; Paul Dyster, Niagara Falls Mayor; Marc-André Dépin, President and CEO, Norampac; Sam Hoyt, Regional President, Empire State Development; Joseph Palmeri, Jamestown Container; Alain Tremblay, CDPQ.
From L-R: John Ryan, Robert Guy, Jeff Lupoff and Mike Sullivan, all of GE Capital.
