Klausner Lumber One’s premises are over 1 km long and around 400 m wide © Google Earth
It is a surprise after all that such a big sum was paid for the first of Fritz Klausner’s two US sawmills. Up until the last minute, Canadian-German timber company Mercer and Mayr-Melnhof Holz were also bidding for the sawmill. The preliminary auction already showed that Binderholz was serious about buying it. The minimum price was put at US-$ 30 million.
As reported, the production site was shuttered in mid-March. On April 30, Klausner Lumber One filed for “Chapter 11 protection” in Delaware/US.
In Live Oak Linck-Line is installed that was built 2007 - and then stored till 2014. If one adds the necessary modernization and renovation costs to the purchase price, the costs are nearly equal to those of a new construction.
This deal brings Binderholz its first production site in North America. Already in December 2019, owner Reinhard Binder predicted that “in 2020, sales will be higher in the US than in Italy”. For a Tyrolean company, this is a remarkable statement.
Binderholz carefully prepared the way to the US. Since July 2019, Thomas Mende has been the CEO of the US subsidiary Binderholz Timber, Inc. Mende worked for Klausner Trading USA for twelve years and has been part of Klausner’s start in the country from the beginning.
