Simpson, Sansome Buying Louisiana-Pacific Operations

PORTLAND, Ore. - Louisiana-Pacific agreed to sell more than 300,000 acres of redwood timberlands, three sawmills and related operations in northern California to closely held Simpson Investment of Seattle and Sansome Partners of San Fransicso for $615 million in cash.

The sale excludes the building products company's Samoa pulp mill, also in northern California, because the buyers had no interest in the mill, the company said. The mill will be sold separately. Today's announced sale includes the sawmills, two distribution facilities and some other unspecified operations.

Portland-based Louisiana-Pacific said in October that it planned to sell more than $1 billion in assets and cut 3,500 jobs in two years to focus on expanding and improving its building-products line. The latest agreement will bring total proceeds from asset sales to more than $750 million, the company said.

Simpson, with subsidiaries Simpson Timber and Simpson Paper, owns about 790,000 acres of timberland. Sansome Partners is an investment firm specializing in long-term investments.

The sale is expected to be completed in late June.