BANGOR, Maine — The auction of thousands of items from shuttered mills in Lincoln and Old Town started Tuesday at the Hilton Garden Inn with paper and tissue machines sold to two different bidders, all but ending any chance of restarting the industry in Lincoln.
Three of the big-ticket items from the Lincoln mill — two papermaking machines and one tissue-making machine and associated components — were sold to Perry Videx of Hainesport, New Jersey, a company that refurbishes and sells industrial equipment around the world.
“They’re going out of the country,” Jerry Epstein, chairman of Perry Videx, said of the equipment after making the winning bids.
Paper machines No. 4 and No. 5 sold together with several other lots for $80,000, and tissue machine No. 7 and associated components went for $450,000, all to Perry Videx.
A second tissue machine, No. 6, was sold to an online bidder for $270,000. The name of the online bidder was not disclosed.
John McMahon, former sales director for Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC and leader of an effort to restart tissue production at the mill, said he placed a bid on the table Monday for the tissue machines and associated gear from Lincoln. He said just before the winning bids were announced that the auctioneers had rejected his bid.
“We mean to try to acquire it from the buyer,” McMahon said after the machines were sold. “It’s not over.”
Before the auction, McMahon said the bid was for “one-third of the mill,” the portions needed to make tissue.
The consortium that owns the former Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC and Expera Specialty Solution’s Old Town facilities is led by Gordon Brothers Group and includes Capital Recovery Group, PPL Group and Rabin Worldwide.
The consortium wanted “us to buy the lot and sell the excess. We don’t need [the excess],” McMahon said. “They want us to wire all the money or they won’t set it aside.”
When that didn’t happen, the Maine group was passed over.
McMahon had plenty of company at what auctioneer Bill Firestone of Capital Recovery Group said would be a “six-day sale.” The auction is scheduled for three days at the Bangor site, then the remainder of the auction will take place online, finishing Tuesday.
“We’ve got 550 lots of online stuff to sell you,” auctioneer Richard Reese of Rabin Worldwide said during his time at the podium.
The assets from the papermaking and pulp mills are being sold piecemeal in more than 3,200 lots, with hundreds registering online to participate, the auctioneer said. Items from the former Lincoln Paper and Tissue mill are being sold first, with Expera Old Town mill items scheduled to hit the auction block around noon Wednesday.
“There are over 250 registered online bidders from all over the world,” Firestone said. “All items are sold as is, where is and how is.”
At least one bidder arrived in Bangor from South Africa to participate, Hazel Tria of Rabin Worldwide said. Others, including Woodville resident Lenny Murphy, who “worked in the Millinocket mill three different times,” are from Maine.
“I’ve spent about $1,000,” said Murphy, who is a disabled U.S. Navy veteran, carpenter and welder. “I’m from the area, and I hate to see things move from the area.”
He said he got a good deal on smaller items he purchased at the auction.
The auction of the property at the Lincoln mill includes paper machines, pulp processing equipment, boilers and facilities. The owners previously found a buyer for one of the company’s tissue machines, which union officials and former employees said likely was a death knell for papermaking in Lincoln. McMahon disagreed.
The Expera auction items include a digester, pulp drying line, a power boiler plant and building, as well as vehicles, mostly trucks; automotive, maintenance, electrical and laboratory shop supplies; numerous pumps and motors, and items from the old and new water intake buildings.
All small items must be removed from the two mill sites by April 29, and several companies that remove heavy equipment were at the auction to assist high bidders with removing what they purchased.
Lincoln Paper and Tissue, formerly known as Eastern Pulp & Paper Corp., filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 28, 2015, laying off the remaining 179 millworkers at the facility that had twice as many employees before a November 2013 boiler explosion that led to 185 layoffs about one month later.
Expera Specialty Solutions of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, acquired the assets of the former Old Town Fuel and Fiber pulp mill for $10.5 million on Dec. 5, 2014, at a bankruptcy auction.
Expera reopened the mill, but announced in late September 2015 that it would close the facility at the end of the year, displacing about 195 people who worked at the mill, which provided pulp for four Expera mills in Wisconsin.