AbitibiBowater announces completion of asset sales

AbitibiBowater announced today that its subsidiaries have completed

• (i) the sale of three idle paper mills located in eastern Canada together with certain related assets and the property on which these paper mills are located to a wholly owned affiliate of American Iron & Metal Company Inc. ("AIM") for C$8.7 million and


• (ii) the sale of assets located in British Columbia to an affiliate of Conifex Inc. ("Conifex") for C$33.9 million.

The three paper mills sold to AIM are located in:

• Beaupré (Québec)


• Donnacona (Québec)


• Dalhousie (New Brunswick)

As part of the sale, AIM has also agreed to acquire a fourth idle paper mill (Fort William), located in Thunder Bay (Ontario).

In addition, AbitibiBowater will be paid 40% of the net proceeds from any subsequent sale of paper machines from these mills, of which AIM has undertaken to pay C$5 million on September 6, 2010, regardless of whether any such subsequent sale takes place.

The assets sold to Conifex, all located in Mackenzie (British Columbia), include a paper mill, two sawmills, including planer mills, as well as timberland operations with a forestry license providing an annual allowable cut of approximately 932,500 cubic meters.

AbitibiBowater has streamlined its asset portfolio to focus on top-performing facilities by closing or idling 3.4 million metric tons of paper capacity, moving from an overall production capacity of 10.4 million metric tons to 7 million metric tons, since 2007. During this period, the Company has also sold aggregate assets and land for total proceeds of over $980 million.

Source: AbitibiBowater