U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said Friday the historic Chillicothe paper mill, owned currently by Pixelle Specialty Solutions, will pause its permanent closure until December.
Pixelle and its parent, the private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, made public the decision to permanently close the plant Tuesday. Nearly 1,000 Ohioans work at the more than 200-year-old Chillicothe Mill, according to a letter Moreno sent to Pixelle and H.I.G. executives Thursday, in which he blamed them for “selfish business decisions.”
“This is not over,” Moreno said Friday. “It just gives us time.”
He and other elected officials, including U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), Gov. Mike DeWine, and Attorney General Dave Yost, were joined late Friday morning by a large crowd of residents on the edge of Chillicothe, flooding the sunbaked parking lot of a credit union, where the faded red-and-white smoke stacks vented in the background.
An hour earlier, Moreno said H.I.G. Capital Chief Executive Officer Sami Mnaymneh had agreed over a call to hold off on closure through the end of the year.
What comes next is hazier, including whether there is another buyer.
“All options are on the table,” Moreno said. “A thousand people losing their job in Chillicothe is like 15,000 people losing their job in Columbus. That’ll be devastating to that community. We can’t allow that to happen.”
Both he and Husted took aim at problems they say private equity firms pose in communities like Chillicothe.
“They’re buying up perfectly functional businesses, breaking them up, selling off their parts and using the system that we’ve created in this country to do that,” Husted said. “That’s not capitalism. That’s not entrepreneurial spirit.”
In a Friday afternoon email, a spokesperson for Pixelle confirmed the closure, highlighting Moreno’s commitment to establish a Chillicothe office.
