Simpson Paper To Sell Mills

Simpson Paper Co., a privately held company based here, is selling three of its four mills, keeping only the Tacoma Kraft mill.

Last year, the company announced it was selling five of the nine mills it owned at that time. Then earlier this year, Simpson Investment Co., the corporate parent, began reducing its Seattle staff in a move that cost 70 percent of the corporate employees their jobs.

The company still owns nearly 775,000 acres of forests in Washington, Oregon and California. But once the mill sales go through, the corporation’s only plant will be the one in Tacoma that makes linerboard for boxes and sells pulp to other paper mills.

Corporate leaders have said Simpson is trying to focus on its core businesses. Industry observer Paul Ehinger called it a major retrenchment.

In a news release, Simpson’s chairman, Colin Moseley, said the company’s three mills had been hit hard by a prolonged downturn in the paper industry. Mills in Anderson, Calif., and Pasadena, Texas, make coated papers; the third, in Gilman, Vt., makes checkwriting paper.