Ballantyne Strong's (BTN) GreenFirst To Acquire Forest and Paper Products Assets in Ontario and Quebec For $214 Million

Ballantyne Strong, Inc. (NYSE American: BTN) (the “Company” or “Ballantyne Strong”) announced that portfolio company GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. (TSXV: GFP) (“GreenFirst”) has entered into a binding asset purchase agreement pursuant to which a wholly-owned subsidiary of GreenFirst has agreed to acquire a portfolio of forest and paper product assets from Rayonier A.M. Canada G.P. and Rayonier A.M. Canada Industries Inc., each a subsidiary of Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc.

Based on GreenFirst’s announcement, the purchased assets include six lumber mills which are located in Chapleau, Cochrane, Hearst and Kapuskasing in Ontario, and in Béarn and La Sarre in Québec, as well as one newsprint mill located in Kapuskasing, Ontario. The purchased assets have an annual production capacity of 755 MMFbm and are capable of producing a wide range of forest products used in residential and commercial construction, including SPF lumber, wood chips and by-products. The newsprint mill has an annual production capacity of 205,000 MT/year. Collectively, the purchased assets rank as a top ten producer of lumber in Canada, based on recent publicly available industry rankings.

GreenFirst also announced that it intends to file a prospectus to conduct a backstopped rights offering to finance a portion of the purchase price for the purchased assets. GreenFirst intends to issue three rights for each of its outstanding shares of common stock with each right being exercisable, at a subscription price of Can$1.50. Ballantyne Strong current holds approximately 7.0 million common shares in GreenFirst, which would be expected to result in the receipt of approximately 21.1 million rights under the proposed rights offering. In connection with the backstop, Ballantyne Strong entered into a commitment letter with GreenFirst agreeing to exercise a minimum of approximately US$1.6 million in the contemplated rights offering.

Details of the transaction are available on the GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. press release issued this morning and available here.

Mark Roberson, Chief Executive Officer of Ballantyne Strong, commented, “We are very pleased with the progress that GreenFirst is making driving its growth strategy. This is a transformative acquisition that will make GreenFirst a top ten lumber producer in Canada, and we are excited about GreenFirst’s future as it expands its focused Canadian timber strategy. Prior to this transaction, Ballantyne Strong had an approximate $17 million unrealized gain on our investment in GreenFirst, and we look forward to continuing to participate in GreenFirst’s growth.”

Kyle Cerminara, Chairman of Ballantyne Strong, commented, “This is a historic transaction for our strategic investment in GreenFirst. We believe this transaction will greatly enhance the value of our strategic investments and we look forward to benefiting from both cyclical and secular tailwinds in the forest products industry. We could not be more pleased with the developments at GreenFirst over the last 12 months.”

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