NewPage Group plans initial public offering

NewPage did not disclose the size or price range of its proposed IPO, but indicated that the offering price may total up to $805 million. The company noted that the total offering price was estimated solely to calculate its registration fee and may change.

NewPage also said that some stockholders will sell shares as part of the IPO.

Coated paper is used mostly in media and marketing applications, such as corporate annual reports, high-end advertising brochures, direct mail advertising, coated labels, magazines, and catalogs.

The Miamisburg, Ohio-based company operates 25 paper machines at 12 mills located in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nova Scotia and Wisconsin.

NewPage said its mills have a total annual production capacity of about 5.5 million short tons of paper, including roughly 4.3 million short tons of coated paper, 920,000 short tons of uncoated paper and 300,000 short tons of specialty paper. The mills also produce about 3.2 million short tons of pulp, most of which is used internally.

NewPage's customers include Conde Nast Publications, Hearst Corp., McGraw-Hill Cos., Meredith Corp., RR Donnelley & Sons Co., J.C. Penney Co. and Target Corp.

The company was formed by Cerberus Capital Management LP in 2005 to acquire the printing and writing papers business of MeadWestvaco Corp. In 2007, NewPage acquired Stora Enso North America Inc., or SENA, which more than doubled its production capacity.

As adjusted to include the acquisition of SENA, 2007 sales totaled $4.7 billion.

NewPage Chairman and Chief Executive Mark A. Suwyn previously served as a consultant for Cerberus through Marsuw LLP, of which he was founder and president. He has also served as chairman and CEO of home construction products maker Louisiana-Pacific Corp.