Finch, Pruyn & Co. is Sold to Connecticut
Holding Company; Soon All 161,000 acres of Timber Land Go to The
Nature Conservancy
Finch, Pruyn & Co. shareholders agreed on April 24 to sell
the assets of the Glens Falls paper manufacturing company to a
joint venture of Blue Wolf Capital and Atlas Holdings, with the
sale to be completed in June, the Glens Falls Post-Star reported
the day after the vote. A family-owned firm founded in 1865, Finch
Pruyn employs about 850 people, is the largest for-profit employer
in the Adirondack region, and is the second largest private landowner
in New York, according to reports. The company is a leader in
the premium uncoated printing paper market. A new company called
Finch Paper Holdings, based in Connecticut, was created. Richard
Carota, Finch Pruyn’s chairman, president and CEO since 1984,
was retained. But bad news soon followed. In a joint release with
Finch Paper Holdings on June 18, The Nature Conservancy announced
that, concurrently with the closing of the previously announced
sale of all of Finch Pruyn’s assets to Finch Paper Holdings,
it purchased all 161,000 acres of the company’s forest land
in the Adirondacks for $110 million, or $683 an acre, according
to the Post-Star. The Nature Conservancy borrowed the full
purchase price from the Open Space Conservancy, a branch of the
Open Space Institute, and John Hancock Life Insurance Co. Finch
Paper Holdings has a twenty-year agreement with The Nature Conservancy
to continue logging on the timber lands.
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