RUMFORD – NewPage Corp. announced Friday it has completed the purchase of a Finnish company’s three North American paper mills for $2.5 billion.

“This makes NewPage the largest coated paper company in North America,” with 35 percent of the industry, said Rumford mill spokesman Tony Lyons.

The acquisition brings the number of NewPage mills to 12, paper machines to 26 and employees to 8,000. The mills are in Maine, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nova Scotia, Canada.

The latter three are the latest additions from Stora Enso Oyj, which also has mills in Europe.

NewPage bought the Rumford mill and three others in 2005.

Lyons said it’s too early to know what the impact of the acquisition will be locally. Changes, if any, should be known within 30 to 45 days. The mill has 1,100 employees, and all its paper machines are currently operating.

“It’s a great a thing for NewPage to become such a big player. We’re in a competitive business,” Lyons said.

NewPage, headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, is the largest printing paper manufacturer in North America based on production capacity. It had more than $4.3 billion in pro forma net sales for the last 12 months ending Sept. 30, according to a statement about the sale. Its mills have a total annual production capacity of approximately 5.5 million tons of paper, including 4.3 million tons of coated paper, 920,000 tons of uncoated paper and 300,000 tons of specialty paper, as well as approximately 3.2 million tons of pulp, the company said.

Local 900 Union President Gary Hemingway said he doesn’t yet know the impact of the purchase, either, although he said the current three-year contract, which expires July 1, 2010, will not be affected.

“Sometimes being bigger is better, but we don’t know how it will affect equipment and the Rumford mill,” he said Friday afternoon. “Hopefully we’ll be bubbly on the next announcement.”

He said some of the considerations include whether Stora Enso’s machines are slower and smaller than NewPage’s machines. If so, then the Rumford mill could pick up some orders.

“We have an excellent senior leadership team in place and are creating new opportunities for our employees to grow and succeed,” NewPage President and Chief Operating Officer Richard D. Willett said in a statement Friday. “We know there are many challenges ahead of us, but we believe we’re well positioned for success and look forward to making the company prosper and grow.”

The majority of NewPage Corp. is owned by New York City-based Cerberus Capital Management, one of the world’s leading private investment first with approximately $26 billion under management. It specializes in providing both financial resources and operational expertise to help transform undervalued companies into industry leaders for long-term success and value creation.