COMBINED LOCKS, WI (WTAQ) – The sale of a Combined Locks paper mill to a California-based liquidation company has been approved.
A judge has signed off on Industrial Assets buying Appleton Coated for $21-million dollars. It is expected to close on Friday.
As part of the sale, there will be a 90-day period to search for a different buyer to run the mill.
A crew of roughly 100 employees will be kept on to keep the building maintained during that time.
Many of Appleton Coated’s 600+ workers were temporarily laid off last month and will remain laid off.
A lot of those folks are feeling uncertain about their futures.
Carrie Thomas is trying to figure out what’s next.
“I know a lot of us have been looking for new jobs, some of us have been starting to think about schooling, not putting all our hopes on this.”
Thomas says there is one positive from the sale.
“We’re all excited about that, because the purchase agreement was supposed to be done and finalized Friday. Well, it wasn’t, so we were all losing our health insurance Saturday night at midnight.”
The high-end commercial printing product maker filed for receivership in August and was auctioned off in September.


