KEY POINTS:
Billionaire Graeme Hart has further expanded his paper and packaging empire, paying US$338 million ($449 million) to buy North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Paper Products.
Hart's Rank Group already has paper and packaging interests in the US as well as New Zealand, Australia and Europe.
Blue Ridge is a privately owned paper and packaging company which had sales of US$570 million last year and assets of more than US$300 million. Negotiations for the sale were made public in March.
Blue Ridge has a strong US market position in the paper packaging sector - specialising in milk and juice cartons, and envelope and printing paper.
But it has also been unprofitable for several years, is carrying debt of more than $200 million, and has an ebitda of about US$35 million.
It has 1300 staff, most of whom are shareholders in the company.
The average employee who had been with the company since at least 1999 was likely to receive a payout of about $20,000, Blue Ridge president Rich Lozyniak told the North Carolina-based Asheville Citizen-Times.
Employees said the merger was likely to make the future more certain for Blue Ridge, which had operated in the region for 100 years.
Since divesting the bulk of his Australasian food businesses in the past few years, Hart has been concentrating on the packaging sector.
Earlier this year he bought an Iowa-based paper and packaging company, Evergreen, from US company International Paper for $725 million.
Last year he paid $3.3 billion for Carter Holt Harvey (which had been majority-owned by International Paper).
All three companies produce the same kind of "gable top" liquid beverage packaging used in products like milk cartons. In May Hart completed the $3.2 billion takeover of packaging giant SIG.
