Norske Skog buying Fletcher Paper for $2.5 billion

Norske Skog and Fletcher Challenge Ltd. reached an agreement for the Norwegian company to buy New Zealand-based Fletcher Challenge Paper for $2.5 billion (NOK 21 billion/NZ$5.0 billion), including assumption of debt. The deal, which could be concluded in summer 2000, would make Norske the world's second largest newsprint producer with 5.8 million metric tons of capacity on five continents. The deal includes Fletcher Paper's 50.8% ownership in Fletcher Challenge Canada's three operations in BC, and for about the same price that the stockholders of the Canadian company rejected last November 1999.