Tolleson Lumber Is Sold

Russia-based Ilim Timber Industry (ITI) is acquiring Tolleson Lumber Co., Inc., based in Perry, Ga. In addition to the acquisition of Tolleson Lumber’s southern yellow pine sawmills at Perry and Preston, Ga., the agreement calls for Tolleson Lumber’s current management team to remain in place and implement a strategy, supported financially by ITI, to acquire additional SYP lumber production capacity and instill into those newly purchased SYP mills the Tolleson Lumber management and operations approach.

Tolleson’s management team includes CEO Rusty Wood, President Jay Galloway and COO George Georgiev. The Tolleson Lumber name, established with the business in 1919, will remain. “They want our name and our reputation,” Wood says. “They want us to infuse our system into the mills we purchase. They want 2 billion board feet of production in the South and they told us to get it. We’re looking to purchase saw­mills.” Tolleson Lumber’s existing two sawmills produce 330MMBF annually.

ITI, a private entity, was established in 2007 as a spinoff of the woodworking assets of Ilim Pulp when International Paper purchased half of Ilim Pulp. To go along with its two sawmills and plywood mill in Russia, Ilim Timber purchased two sawmills in Germany from Klausner Group in 2010.