Fortress Paper Sells Part of Bank Note Unit

Pulp and bank note producer Fortress Paper Ltd., Vancouver, B.C., Canada, is selling its operations that make security film used in bank notes to Nanotech Security Corp. for up to $17.5 million in cash and shares. Fortress said that the buyer has agreed to continue supplying optical variable thin film material to the company's Switzerland bank notes and high-security paper mill.

Fortress Optical Features makes the colorful security threads contained in some Canadian paper currency and various international denominations. Developed in co-ordination with the National Research Council of Canada in the early 1980s, the material was first used in Canada in 1988.

Nanotech Security Corp., which is buying the division, offers its own security features from certain wavelengths of light that create an image from very small "nano holes" perforated in notes or documents.

"We're very confident that the two companies together will be a better, stronger entity," Fortress CEO Chadwick Wasilenkoff said. He added that the workforce at the division's plant in Thurso, Que., Canada, could more than triple over the next six months to 60 or 70 if the buyer secures a large, new contract from an undisclosed potential customer. The plant uses less than 20% of its capacity but could sell out completely with the contract.

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