Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Potlatch To Purchase Stock

Potlatch Corporation recently announced that its board of directors has approved an expanded stock repurchase program authorizing the company to purchase two million shares of common stock through periodic open market and privately negotiated transactions.

The expanded repurchase program superceded an existing repurchase effort, initiated in 1994, to purchase up to one million shares of common stock. Approximately 500,000 shares have been purchased to date under the previous authorization.

Goldman, Sachs will continue to serve as broker/dealer for Potlatch's stock repurchase.

"Stock repurchase is an appealing investment opportunity and a logical use for a portion of the increased free cash flow we expect in coming months as we wrap up the last of our major capital projects," said L. Pendleton Siegel, chairman and chief executive officer.

Siegel added that the anticipated improvement in cash flow will allow a more aggressive share repurchase effort to be carried out in conjunction with the company's commitment to reduce its debt and desire to capitalize on high-return investment opportunities at its existing facilities.

Siegel also noted that an additional objective of the share repurchase program over time is to offset the dilution resulting from issuance of shares under various employee incentive programs. To assist in mitigating such dilution, cash generated from exercise of employee stock options will be committed, along with internally generated cash, to the share repurchase effort.

Potlatch is a diversified forest products company with timberlands in Arkansas (including Prescott), Idaho and Minnesota.