Riverside Forest Products Ltd is to acquire fellow British Columbia lumber company Lignum Ltd in a C$100m deal.

The news is further evidence of consolidation within the timber sector in British Columbia and follows last November’s C$455m merger agreement between Canadian Forest Products Corporation and Slocan Forest Products Ltd.

Vancouver-based Lignum said the move, expected to be finalised this month pending regulatory approval, would allow it to compete more aggressively. Riverside, Canada’s largest plywood producer, will acquire some 20 lumber distribution operations in Canada and the US, plus a sawmill near its own mill at Williams Lake.

The merged company will have a capacity of more than one billion board feet of lumber from an annual harvest of three million m3.