Trends in acquisitions and mergers in the forestry product industries - ARCHIVED

The objective of this brief paper is to describe recent trends in the merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the forest products industry in Canada. The two driving forces most often cited in M&A activity are rising capital costs and full product line servicing. Both of these factors have been at play at various times in the history of forest products industry. However, over the last few years there has been a growing national and global perception that current wood supplies would not be able to satisfy future demand. While the trend away from diversification of earlier decades towards the more recent consolidation of "core" product lines may be the stated reason for the many cases of restructuring, it is felt that the real driving force is the increasing uncertainty associated with raw material supplies. This in turn suggests that possible future "inter-regional" M&A activity may help to secure wood fibre supplies - directly or indirectly - and mitigate increases.