Western Forest Products Inc. is a Canadian lumber company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
History
Following its initial acquisition of the assets of Doman in 2004, the Company undertook a series of restructuring activities including the closure of its Silvertree sawmill in 2005, the exit from the pulp business in early 2006 and ceasing operations at the Duke Point log merchandiser, which was used primarily to supply whole log wood chips to the Company's former Squamish pulp mill. These properties have since been sold or are in the process of being sold (see "Significant Developments Since January 2010" below on the conditional sale of the Squamish site).
Western subsequently expanded its forest operations through two acquisitions. On March 17, 2006, the Company purchased the Englewood Logging Division ("Englewood"), consisting of Tree Farm Licence ("TFL") 37 on Vancouver Island and certain related assets for $45.0 million plus the value of certain log inventories. On May 1, 2006, Western acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Cascadia from Trilon Bancorp Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of BAM, for cash consideration of $202.2 million. Cascadia was a coastal British Columbia integrated lumber producer that harvested timber and produced high-value, high-quality wood products for customers worldwide. Cascadia was, at the time, the largest Crown tenure holder in coastal British Columbia, with an AAC of approximately 3.6 million cubic metres, and one of the largest lumber producers on the British Columbia coast, owning or operating four specialized sawmills with an aggregate annual production capacity of approximately 570 million board feet of lumber, a "custom cut" division and four remanufacturing facilities.
With the closing of the Cascadia and Englewood acquisitions and completion of the restructuring activities, the Company focused on the integration of its ongoing business operations. Western made organizational changes that reduced management staff by approximately 110 positions.