| Macmillan Bloedel Limited |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT MACMILLAN BLOEDEL LIMITED | |
| defunct companies of canada | |
| pulp and paper companies of canada | |
| companies established in 1951 | |
| 1999 disestablishments | |
| companies based in british columbia | |
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POWELL RIVER COMPANY In 1908 two American entrepreneurs, Dr. Dwight Brooks and Michael Scanlon, created a newsprint mill Powell River north of Vancouver. The Powell River Company turned out the first roll of newsprint manufactured in B.C. in 1912. It soon became one of the world’s largest newsprint plants and today is credited with introducing the first self-dumping log barge to B.C. BLOEDEL STEWART WELCH COMPANY In 1911 Julius Bloedel, a Seattle lawyer, along with his two partners, John Stewart and Patrick Welch, began acquiring large blocks of Vancouver Island forests. Their Franklin River camp soon became one of the world’s largest logging operations. Here, in the 1930s, the Canadian industry saw its first steel spar and Chainsaw . In 1938, Bloedel, Stewart And Welch became the first logging company in the province to plant seedlings in a logged-over area. HR MACMILLAN EXPORT COMPANY The last of the three pre-merger companies was the H.R. MacMillan Export Company, which was created in 1919 by Harvey, or H.R. MacMillan , British Columbia’s first Chief Forester. MacMillan reportedly gained considerable experience in world lumbering during World War I. With his colleague Whitford Van Dusen, another forester, MacMillan incorporated a company in 1919 to sell B.C. lumber products to foreign markets. In 1924 they established a shipping company that would become one of the world’s biggest charter companies. With the creation of Seaboard Lumber by the other mill owners in BC, there was a major threat to MacMillan as Seaboard was to export all the lumber from the companies that founded it leaving MacMillan without the lumber needed to fulfill their orders. HR responded by beginning to purchase mills and creating the first truly integrated forestry company in BC. During World War II, MacMillan acquired numerous small mills and timber tenures on the south coast of BC. MERGER OF 1951 In 1951 Bloedel Stewart and Welch merged with HR MacMillan to form MacMillan Bloedel. The B.S.W and MacMillan had many timber holdings side by side and there was a natural synergy from this merger. B.S.W. held a lot timber resources and MacMillan was the first truly integrated forestry company in BC. The merger in 1951 created a company that would be able to compete on the global scene. GLOBAL EXPANSION Beginning in the 1960s, MacMillan Bloedel expanded across North America as well as to Europe and the United Kingdom. At its peak, acquisitions and construction activities gave MB worldwide assets of more than $4 billion CAD . WEYERHAEUSER In June 1999, forestry giant Weyerhaeuser of Seattle announced its intention to buy MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. of Canada for stock valued at about $2.45 billion USD . The merger once it completed, made Weyerhaeuser, which at that time was already the world's largest producer of softwood lumber and market pulp, a leader in packaging as well. |
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