An agreement between Verso Corp. management and a dissident faction of investors is expected to secure the sale of its Androscoggin Mill in Jay to a specialty paper company.

Ohio-based Verso and the heads of Blue Wolf Capital Advisors and Atlas Holdings, both major shareholders, announced an end to their battle over nominees to the paper company’s board of directors Friday morning, hours before Verso’s annual shareholder meeting.

The agreement includes electing three of the investors’ nominees and three of the company’s nominees to the seven-member board of directors.

Atlas and Blue Wolf also will vote to sell the company’s mills in Jay and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Pixelle Specialty Solutions, a privately held company based in Pennsylvania, the company said in a news release.

The $400 million sale received regulatory approval last month. Verso has said it intends to return at least $225 million in profits from the sale to its shareholders. The Jay mill employs about 500 people.

Blue Wolf and Atlas, which collectively own 9 percent of Verso’s shares, had questioned the deal and the company’s recent business decisions. Last year, they launched a bid to put a slate of nominees on the board of directors. The two investment firms also own the Twin Rivers paper mill in Madawaska.

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Verso, in response, said the investors were trying to hold up the Pixelle transaction and instead merge Verso with Twin Rivers.

Shareholders were scheduled to vote on the sale Friday. A Verso spokeswoman said the company planned to announce the results of the vote on Monday.

When it announced the sale in November, Pixelle said buying the two mills would make it the largest specialty paper businesses in the U.S. in terms of annual production. The company would produce paper products in four mills in Maine, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Verso invested $17 million in the Androscoggin mill almost two years ago to convert and restart a paper machine to make packaging products. The investment brought back 120 workers who were laid off when the machine was turned off in 2017.


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