Longview Fibre has rebuffed a $1.3 billion takeover bid by two private Oregon investment companies that would put one of Cascadia’s biggest landowners under private control.
The offer comes from timber manager Campbell Group and Obsidian Finance Group, a private equity firm run by executives who left Willamette Industries when Weyerhaeuser acquired it.
A deal would continue the shift in ownership of the region’s forests from integrated companies that have logging, mills and ties to local communities, to investment companies that manage timber as part of a portfolio of assets.
Longview Fibre plans to convert to a REIT. It’s managed only a slim profit in recent years, despite trimming operations. It manages about 587,000 acres of timberland mostly in western Washington and Oregon, and has paper and box plants.