Weyerhaeuser Buys Panhandle Recycling Products Coeur D’Alene Company Joins Timber Giant’s Large Network Of Paper Recyclers

Weyerhaeuser Co. on Tuesday purchased Panhandle Recycling Products Inc. of Coeur d’Alene, one of the area’s largest paper recyclers.

The Federal Way, Wash.-based wood products giant added Panhandle to its large network of paper recyclers for an undisclosed price, said Jason Plut, Weyerhaeuser spokesman.

“Panhandle is one of the best paper recyclers in the Northwest,” Plut said. The company now becomes a unit of Weyerhaeuser’s large recycling operations.

Panhandle Recycling, 4885 Industrial Ave., employs eight people and has collected newspaper, corrugated paper and other recyclable materials since 1975. Co-owner Mike Young will become the unit manager under Weyerhaeuser.

The other co-owner, Bud McCorkle, will retire from the business, Plut said. Neither Young nor McCorkle were available for comment Tuesday.

Pulp and paper recycled from Panhandle will likely feed Weyerhaeuser mills in Oregon, Plut said. The new unit is the company’s 37th in the recycling division.

The company plans to expand the Panhandle operations, adding more plant capacity and people as demand for recycled products and the supply of paper vary, he said.

“We’ve doubled our total fiber collection every five years since we started in 1974,” Plut said. Weyerhaeuser will collect more than 3 million tons of paper this year and 6 million tons by 1998.

Weyerhaeuser, the world’s largest private owner of merchantable soft-wood timber, also owns a chipping plant in Coeur d’Alene.

Weyerhaeuser also released fourth-quarter and year-end earnings Tuesday, showing improvement during both time periods.

For the quarter, the woodproducts company earned $250.8 million, or $1.25 a share, compared with $188.8 million, or 91 cents a share, for the same quarter last year.

Dramatic improvements in pulp, paper and packaging prices led to year-end earnings of $789.9 million, or $3.93 a share, 36 percent more than the $588.7 million, or $2.86 a share, in 1994.

Were it not for a third quarter realestate revaluation of $184.5 million, Weyerhaeuser’s year-end earnings would have been $983.4 million, 67 percent higher than last year. The charge knocked 90 cents from third-quarter earnings per share.

While strong demand and high prices fueled the pulp and paper side of Weyerhaeuser, the timberlands and wood products division performed well also, said President John W. Creighton Jr.

Pulp, paper and packaging earned $304 million in the fourth quarter. It earned the company $1.2 billion for the year, a 460 percent increase from the $211 million in 1994.

Weyerhaeuser’s timberlands and wood products segment earned $183 million in the fourth quarter compared with $262 million for the same time a year earlier. For the year, the division earned $808 million, compared with $1 billion in 1994.

The company said markets for pulp and paper products weakened in the fourth quarter and predicted the weakening would persist into 1996.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Eric Torbenson Staff writer The Associated Press contributed to this report.