manufacturers+distributors+retailers

Georgia-Pacific announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Grant Forest Products’ oriented strand board (OSB) facility at Englehart, Ontario, and the associated facility at Earlton, Ontario, as well as its OSB facilities at Allendale and Clarendon, S.C., for approximately $400 million. Grant Forest Products intends to seek approval of the agreement in the near future from the Canadian Court overseeing Grant’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act case and a United States Bankruptcy Court. Georgia-Pacific intends to operate the OSB manufacturing facilities that employ more than 300 people in Ontario and at Allendale, SC. At the Clarendon plant, Georgia-Pacific plans to complete the unfinished construction and begin operations as soon as market conditions allow, which will entail employing more than 100 people in Clarendon County. In addition, Georgia-Pacific plans to make capital investments worth several million dollars to improve facilities and deliver enhanced reliability and efficiencies.

One in every 7.5 homeowners in the U.S. is either behind on mortgage payments or in foreclosure according to the Mortgage Monitor report, released by Lender Processing Services Inc. Total delinquencies, excluding foreclosures, increased to a record high 9.97 percent in December, representing a month-over-month increase of 5.46 percent and a year-over-year increase of 21.29 percent. Loans rolling to a more delinquent status totaled 5.01 percent, compared to 1.52 percent of loans that improved. Of loans that were current in December 2008, 4.37 percent were either 60 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure by the end of November 2009, a rate higher than any other year for the same period. Compared to 2005 levels, foreclosure inventories across all loans are now nearly seven times higher, while jumbo loan foreclosure inventories are nearly 100 times more than levels four years ago.

Not surprising, cities in California, Florida and Nevada accounted for the 10 highest foreclosure rates in the third quarter among metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more, according to RealtyTrac’s Q3 2009 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report. 

However, five of those top 10 metro areas reported decreasing foreclosure activity from the third quarter of 2008, while many other metro areas with Top 50 foreclosure rates reported sharp increases in foreclosure activity.