GL&V/Beloit-Lenox Celebrates Milestones

Lenox, February 26, 2001— February 25, 2001 marked the one-year anniversary of the Beloit-Lenox plant under the new owners Groupe Laperriere & Verrault (GL&V), a Canadian manufacturing company, with corporate offices in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. GL&V purchased the Lenox plant, as well as the Beloit Pulping unit in Nashua, New Hampshire, after Beloit Corporation, Beloit, Wisconsin filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection in June 1999. GL&V/Beloit-Lenox, which employs about 125 people, engineers and manufactures paper finishing machinery for the pulp and paper industry worldwide and has the largest installed base of winders in North America. Major products include Complete Winding Systems, Advanced Technology Control Systems; Modular rebuilds to existing winders, as well as Parts and Service for any manufacturer's winder. The Lenox operation has an annual revenue of ~$30mm.

40 Years in the Community
2001 also marks the 40^th anniversary of the Lenox operations. The company was founded as the Lenox Machine Company by Don Grody in 1961 and moved to its present location in 1964. Don Grody started the company with his invention of the first fully automated cut-size sheeter which converted rolls of paper into finished sheets from 8.5" x 11" to 11" x 17". He built the first machine in a chicken coup in his backyard. Lenox Machine was sold to Beloit Corporation in 1979 and the company also began to engineer and manufacture winding equipment for the paper industry. Currently, almost 30% of the employees at Lenox have worked in the company for more than 20 years.

Local Operations
GL&V/Beloit-Lenox is looking to expand its operations to include other paper machinery product lines and has shown strong profit levels over the course of this fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2001. It has also been focusing more attention on expanding the spare parts business and increasing its market share of services through its Winder Service Center (WSC). Highly experienced technical service engineers who provide everything from process analysis, winder diagnostics and lab services, to preventive maintenance programs and start-up support for new machines staff the WSC, the largest of its kind in the industry.

"We've been extremely happy with the way that the operation was transferred to GL&V during a dark time in our company's life. GL&V has shown confidence in our ability to stay profitable and in the high productivity and skill level of our employees, as well as the high quality of our equipment and services," says Mark Hallenbeck, General Manager of the Lenox operations. "It was a perfect match for both us and GL&V, as our finishing equipment filled a niche market where they were previously not as strong. We continue to look for ways to improve our machinery through technology advances and to improve our market share through aggressive marketing campaigns to paper manufacturers in North America." The Lenox plant has recently hired two new employees: Marion Wolf, Cost Accounting and Tom Carlough, Engineering.

Profile
Founded in 1975, GL&V is a world leader in the design and manufacture of engineered proprietary equipment for the pulp and paper industry and other strategic markets, consisting mainly of chemicals, mining, minerals, energy and the environment. The Company holds the proprietary rights to most of the machinery used in its customized technological solutions. Its equipment is manufactured primarily in its plants in North America and Europe, as well as by a network of subcontractor partners. GL&V's sales network extends into five continents. The Company has operations and sales representatives in Canada, the United States, six European countries, Australia, Africa, Asia, and South America, in addition to sales agents in most industrialized regions. GL&V employs close to 1,500 people worldwide.

Provided by: GL&V Pulp and Paper Group