March 29, 2024

DealBook: Papermaker Owned by Cerberus Files for Bankruptcy

A NewPage paper plant in Escanaba, Mich.Nicole Gearhart/Associated PressA NewPage paper plant in Escanaba, Mich.

8:40 p.m. | Updated

The NewPage Corporation, the ailing papermaker owned by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, blaming a sharp decline in the magazine industry, a spike in the cost of raw material and too much debt.

The company, which is based in Miamisburg, Ohio, and has 6,000 workers, will now operate under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it restructures its balance sheet and seeks to slash its debt, which exceeds $3 billion.

The long-expected Chapter 11 filing in United States Bankruptcy Court in Delaware punctuates a painful investment for Cerberus, which borrowed heavily to acquire the MeadWestvaco paper mill business in 2005 for $2.3 billion and renamed it NewPage.

“The company’s current capital structure was put in place during a different time with different assumptions,” NewPage said in a statement.

NewPage is one of only several multibillion-dollar buyouts struck in the market boom — a list that includes the retailer Linens ’n Things, the music company EMI Group and the aluminum maker Aleris — that have ended in bankruptcy.

During the depths of the financial crisis, many private-equity watchers expected deep misery for the buyout firms that issued more than $1.5 trillion in debt to finance leveraged buyouts since 2003, according to Dealogic. But the number of bankruptcy filings was limited as the capital markets quickly recovered, allowing firms to shore up their companies by repurchasing debt or issuing new equity.

Still, Wednesday’s filing provides fodder for critics of the private equity industry who contend leveraged buyouts like the Cerberus takeover of NewPage destroy companies and jobs.

The NewPage filing is the second recent prominent legal case involving Cerberus, the New York investment firm that had ill-fated investments in GMAC and Chrysler. Last month, Cerberus was sued by Innkeepers USA Trust after it backed out of its $1.1 billion acquisition of the hotel company.

After being battered during the financial crisis, and suffering sizable redemptions in its hedge funds, Cerberus has had vast improvements. Among successful investments, the firm has made a killing buying distressed mortgages at the market bottom.

It has already written off its stake in NewPage, which has been a troubled investment from the start. Under private-equity ownership, NewPage, which specializes in coated paper for magazines, has shut factories and slashed jobs. The company operates 16 paper mills from Duluth, Minn., to Rumford, Me.

Cerberus brought in Robert Nardelli, the former head of Home Depot and Chrysler, last year as chairman to help turn the company around. He did not do so, and resigned in May.

NewPage alluded to another reason for the bankruptcy filing: the iPad. While not mentioning the Apple tablet or similar devices by name, the company’s bankruptcy papers cite “increases in the use of electronic data transmission and storage” and “an increased demand for electronic reading material.”

Now, several private-equity firms and hedge funds that own NewPage’s debt — the Avenue Capital Group, Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital Management among them — will fight in court to control the company.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=212d43af3cc04aff1187b3eee972f88c

DealBook: Weber Tapped to Become UBS Chairman

Axel A. WeberKai Pfaffenbach/ReutersAxel A. Weber, the former German central bank president, was selected to join UBS’s board as vice chairman in 2012, then chairman a year later.

UBS said Friday that it had picked Axel A. Weber, the former German central bank president, to join its board next year, and that it planned to appoint him as chairman a year later.

Mr. Weber is set to join UBS’s board as nonindependent vice chairman, subject to approval by the bank’s shareholders. If elected, he would then be nominated to succeed Kaspar Villiger as chairman of the board. The shareholder vote to approve him is scheduled for May 3, 2012.

‘‘I am pleased that I can present a board member and future chairman who is an internationally renowned personality with an outstanding reputation,’’ Mr. Villiger said in a statement. ‘‘His appointment will guarantee a smooth leadership transition and stability.’’

Mr. Weber was a candidate to replace Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank before he withdrew from the race in February after making some controversial comments about monetary policy. He also resigned from the Bundesbank, the German central bank, saying he would return to academia. Before becoming a central banker, Mr. Weber had worked as an economics professor at universities in Germany.

‘‘Being able to help shape the bank’s future is an attractive prospect,’’ he said in the statement.

Mr. Weber, 54, was also seen as a potential candidate to take the top job at Deutsche Bank, once the contract of the current chief executive, Josef Ackermann, ran out in 2013.

UBS’s chief executive, Oswal J. Grübel, is still trying to repair a bank that was one of the hardest hit in Europe during the financial crisis. Its role in a recent legal case over tax evasion by some of its American clients had also hurt the reputation of its wealth management operation.

Some analysts have said previously that it is unclear how long Mr. Grübel would stay at UBS. Mr. Grübel, a 67-year old former chief executive of Credit Suisse, came out of retirement to help turn UBS around in 2009.

Mr. Grübel cut jobs, shrank the balance sheet and strengthened the private banking operations but said earlier this year that the investment banking unit’s performance was still not satisfactory. UBS posted a annual profit in 2010, its first since before the financial crisis.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e4a3ebf857f57cef4194d48f09a25d01