One of British Columbia’s largest timber firms, Doman Industries Ltd, is in financial trouble after missing an interest payment on part of its C$1.1bn total debt.
The company, which has nine sawmills employing about 4,000 workers, was last week given 30 days to make good the C$26m payment or go into default.
Doman partly blames the softwood lumber dispute for its predicament, citing significant disruption to operations, with major downtime at its sawmills. It has also put millions of dollars aside for the new US duties.
The company last week announced net losses of C$413m for the year ending December 31, 2001.
The loss, a dramatic increase on the C$39.8m loss recorded in 2000, was affected by a write-down of capital assets totalling C$291.7m.
Solid wood sales in 2001 were C$532m compared to C$573.9m the previous year, with fourth quarter earnings of C$8.7m impacted by a C$7.5m pre-tax provision for countervailing and anti-dumping duties imposed by the US.
