Marred by what the European Commission deemed “fiscal and macroeconomic imbalances built up over the decade,” many financial analysts say the euro is in trouble. Countries such as Ireland, Spain and Italy have all been marked by high debt levels and threats of recession, particularly in the last three to four years.

As recently as this week, Greece announced it would be looking for bailout money to the tune of 130 billion euros. “The bail-out agreement needs to be signed,” said government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis told Greek television outlets. “Otherwise, we will be out of the markets, out of the euro.”

However, if countries such as Greece attempt to discard the euro and return to their original national currency, this is not a process that can take place overnight. In fact, experts in the banknote industry say it will take a minimum of one year before any particular countries can revert to another currency.

Before banknotes can be processed, they have to be designed, developed and equipped with security features to prevent counterfeiting. These elements must be assembled before being shipped to the paper maker, which can take three to four months. After that, the notes are sent to the security printer who must undergo at least six to eight different processes to get the notes ready for circulation.

“When we look at the eurozone it is very challenging to contemplate the logistics behind that,” Chad Wasilenkoff, CEO of Fortress Paper – a company that manufactures banknotes – told BNN in December. “It could be easier if one country such as Greece were to fall off, but if the whole thing were to come crumbling down it’s just not logistically possible.”

Despite the length, an article published by RT.com last month said central banks throughout Europe are preparing contingency plans evaluating their needs for additional printing capacity should the euro come to an end.

SOURCES:
The Malta Independent: “Little To Celebrate As Eurozone Marks 10-Year Anniversary”
RT.com: “Highway To Hell? Greece Barrels Toward Euro Exit”
RT.com: “Plan B: Printing Presses on Standby To Beat Euro’s Demise”
The Globe and Mail: “Video: Can Printing New Currencies Keep Euro Zone United?”

According to an article published by RT.com, central banks throughout Europe are preparing contingency plans evaluating their needs for additional printing capacity should the euro – a singular currency shared by seventeen countries – come to an end.

The Central Bank of Ireland, for example, is assessing the capacity of their banknote facilities where they currently manufacture new euro bills. Last year, Ireland printed 127.5 million 10-euro notes.

“The bank’s printing capacities may not meet demand should the country need to come up with a hasty replacement for the euro,” RT.com said. “Officials are discussing reactivating old printers or
enlisting a private contractor to do the job”

Last week, in a segment that aired on PRI’s The World, banknote manufacturers and economists also said the industry could see some increased businesses if the euro collapses.

But it’s not all good news. A source from the Bank of England told the Wall Street Journal they were “concerned that if the eurozone unravels, the plant would be overwhelmed with orders and would not be able to print pounds. Britain is reportedly considering steps to ensure that such contingency would not cause damage to the UK’s own interests.”

Among other countries, Switzerland, Montenegro, Bosnia and Latvia are all beginning to look at post-euro plans should the currency bloc fail. To do that, RT reports, “they are now casting around for a new reference point – probably the German mark.”

SOURCES:
RT.com: “Plan B: Printing Presses on Standby To Beat Euro’s Demise”
PRI’s The World: “Making Money by Making Money”

Wasilenkoff said that even though countries may pull out of the eurozone and revert back to their old currency, that process is lengthy and cannot happen overnight.

“Typically a national bank will take anywhere from three to four years to develop a new currency to be able to push it out into circulation in a normalized fashion,” he said Tuesday.

Before banknotes can be processed, they have to be designed, developed and equipped with security features to prevent counterfeiting. These elements must be assembled before being shipped to the paper maker, which can take three to four months. After that, the notes are sent to the security printer who must undergo at least six to eight different processes to get the notes ready for circulation.

Even in the case of a crisis, the minimum time frame to introduce new banknotes into circulation is close to a year. This is the biggest challenge countries face with regards to re-introducing country-based banknotes as opposed to the multi-country unified currency of the euro, said Wasilenkoff.

“When we look at the eurozone it is very challenging to contemplate the logistics behind that,” he said. “It could be easier if one country such as Greece were to fall off, but if the whole thing were to come crumbling down it’s just not logistically possible.”

Currently in the eurozone there is close to 15 billion individual euro banknotes in circulation right now, valued at nearly 875 billion. This represents about 30% of the total global supply of banknotes, Wasilenkoff said.

Watch the whole video HERE.

SOURCE:
The Globe and Mail: “Video: Can Printing New Currencies Keep Euro Zone United”

This week, Jason Margolis, host of The World on Public Radio International (PRI), caught up with some of these manufacturers who echo the sentiment, saying “there’s still a need for cold, hard cash.”

At a mill in Dalton, MA, Crane & Co. produces about 18 million pounds of paper per year for the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Doug Crane, owner of the family-owned business that has been producing banknotes since the US revolution, says it’s a good time to be in the currency business.

“The demand sort of ebbs and flows, and certainly there’s been a stronger demand on currency and on certain denominations in particular since the economic uncertainty has really spread across the world,” he tells PRI.

Chad Wasilenkoff, CEO of the Vancouver-based specialty paper manufacturer Fortress Paper, agrees with Crane’s assessment. Fortress Paper produces banknotes for many countries, but one of their most notable clients in the country of Switzerland for whom they produce the Swiss Franc. Wasilenkoff says the instability of world markets is driving business.

“People are reluctant to keep as much money in the banks, and they’re pulling it out and going back to the old form of sticking it under the mattress,” he says. “With the global crisis going on, these printing presses are running fast and furious around the world, so it’s very robust times there.”

And it’s not just banknote producers that say cash is as popular as ever. In the PRI piece, Michael Walden, an economist at North Carolina State University, tells Margolis says in times of crisis people turn to cold, hard cash for security.

“I think people in these times like to simply have more cash on hand. I think that just fulfils a basic primal need we have when there is heightened financial fear,” he says.

The economic situation in Europe could also prove to pay off for banknote producers. If the eurozone collapses, countries could once again revert to their old currencies and re-create their reserves.

“Demand for bank notes would definitely go up,” Wasilenkoff says.

SOURCE:
PRI’s The World: “Making Money by Making Money”

In part three of the Globe and Mail’s Small Business Editor Katherine Scarrow’s feature video interview with Fortress Paper CEO Chad Wasilenkoff, where she called Chad Wasilenkoff, Fortress Paper a “born entrepreneur”.

Fortress Paper CEO Chad Wasilenkoff discusses growing up an entrepreneur, and why he’s always looking for a good deal in part 3 of Talking to Entrepreneurs

To watch part three of ‘Talking to Entrepreneurs’ please click HERE.

Watch Other Videos In The Series:

Part 1: ‘Fortress Paper chief turns tired mill into major venture.’ Watch video HERE
Part 3: ‘Entrepreneurial paper chief explains contrarian investing strategy’. Watch video HERE

Globe & Mail Small Business Week Interview Featuring Fortress Paper (Part 2)

In the series the Globe and Mail’s Small Business Editor Katherine Scarrow sits down with Fortress Paper CEO Chad Wasilenkoff to discuss various aspects of his company.

Speaking about his nature as a self-proclaimed “contrarian investor,” Wasilenkoff presents a snapshot of
Fortress Paper’s inception in a time of unprecedented decline in the forestry sector.

“In troubling times like that, there’s always going to be some interesting mill, some interesting product, and somebody has to have something unique, so you just have to pick out those hidden gems,” he says in the interview.

Watch the entire video HERE.

SOURCE:
The Globe And Mail: “Fortress Paper Chief Turns Turns Tired Mill Into Major Venture”

In a video featured in the BBC’s Business section, Marco Ziethen, the production manager at Landquart, takes reporter Lucy Burton through a step-by-step guide to manufacturing banknotes. From importing, refining and bleaching cotton, Ziethen showed how cotton gets turned into currency. Ziethen also explained how, as the paper is being made, security features are embedded in order to prevent counterfeiting of whatever currency is being produced.

The Landquart facility produces an astonishing number of banknotes each day, said the BBC.

“Each pallet has 18,000 sheets of paper on it. Each sheet will eventually be cut into 54 notes. That is an impressive 972,000 notes on each pallet. The mill runs 24 hours a day and it takes half an hour to make a pallet. So, overall, the mill can turn out around 46,656,000 notes per day,” Burton wrote. “If they are making 500-euro notes that day, the amount of money passing through these doors is simply mind-boggling.”

Vancouver-based Fortress Paper Ltd., has made significant strides in production since they began running the Swiss mill, going from “producing less than 1,000 tonnes of paper per year to 10,000 tonnes per year,” according to the BBC article.

Getting to this point, however hasn’t been easy. In another video posted on their site, Fortress Paper CEO Chad Wasilenkoff said the business provided some initial challenges.

“The banknote and passport industry is a very closed group of people,” he said. “A lot of the companies that are operating in this space have been operating since the 1500s or 1600s so we’re a fairly new entry into this.”

Getting reference orders and new contracts with national banks can be challenging, said Wasilenkoff, but Fortress has made some impressive in-roads acquiring large contracts with countries such as Switzerland to produce the Swiss franc – considered to be an industry standard in security.

In addition to these contracts, the banknote industry is one that is perpetually in flux. As technologies change, national banks have to keep updating security features on their banknotes to curb counterfeiting.

“Fortress hopes that the Landquart mill can help banks to ‘stay ahead of the curve’ and of course – make some money in the process,” Burton wrote.

Read the full BBC article and watch the videos HERE.

SOURCE:
BBC News: “How To Make Money From Making Money”

The forestry sector has “gone through a couple of challenging decades,” he said on Tuesday. “So we now need to change that sector and drive forth with new innovation and cutting edge technology to remain globally competitive.”

In the past, the forestry sector was mainly concerned with just wood and pulp. Changing that direction is what is allowing the forestry sector to thrive once again, said Wasilenkoff.

Echoing some of the themes found in an article recently published in the Vancouver Sun and the Windsor Star, Wasilenkoff said today’s foresty sector is now driven by high-tech initiatives, focusing on areas such as biochemistry, genetics, computer modeling, satellite imagery, and digital processing – among others.

The industry now is “more of a biorefiner,” Wasilenkoff said. “We’re taking the wood, we’re breaking it down to the molecular level and extracting as many products as we can to get as much value out of that wood as possible.”

Wasilenkoff also spoke about the Bio-Pathways project – a government sponsored initiative to further research and development in the sector – as well as his own company’s plans for the future with their dissolving pulp mill located in Thurso, Quebec.

Watch the entire video HERE

SOURCE:
BNN: “High Tech Forest Sector”
BNN: “Saving The Forestry Sector One Innovation At A Time”

Push aside dated notions of our global forestry sector as dominated by lumberjacks focused solely on logging trees and processing the wood. Today’s forests are increasingly high-tech with employees skilled in biochemistry, genetics, computer modeling, satellite imagery, and digital processing.

Today’s bio-economy is a dynamic global market that mirrors a paradigm shift to products that originate from natural renewable sources. Mills that have focused on processing timber and pulp are beginning to diversify into bio-energy, bio-chemicals and bio-materials which include wood fibre and biomass that is converted into renewable fuel, food additives, non-toxic chemicals, solvents, plastics, textiles, and other products.

The International Council of Forest and Paper Associations, (ICFPA), which represents the global forest and paper industry, champions the role of our global forest sector as a central, thriving player in our new bio-age. The international forest and paper industry is committed to the principles of sustainable development and ensuring that the environmental, social and economic benefits of our natural resources are available to current and future generations. Studies have shown that by repurposing the chemicals and bio-materials extracted from trees, we can tap into a potential global market estimated at around $200 billion.

The global forestry industry is a vital benefactor to our world’s sustainable development. The worldwide forestry sector supports thousands of communities as a supplier of millions of jobs across the globe. The forestry sector prides itself on its use of renewable raw material and record of sustainable forest management and application of cleaner technologies in an increasing number of mill operations. More and more mills across the world are converting their wood residues into heat and power for their own operations with most of the sector’s energy coming from waste biomass with some facilities already acting as net sources of green power. With its strong reliance on biofuels, maximum recycling rates and the storage of carbon in its wood and paper products, our global forestry sector is at the forefront of the renewable era.

The forestry sector is finding new life in innovative and creative solutions that are not only helping the once struggling industry turn around, but also helping to usher in a green movement. After two years of work by FPAC, FPInnovations, and the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) of Natural Resources Canada, a new program called the Bio-pathways Project was set into motion this year with the goal of revitalizing the Canadian forestry sector. The project looks outside of traditional uses for wood, lumber, pulp and paper in an effort to create new jobs and sectors with a more sustainable future for the country and its citizens. New, innovative products include bio-active paper – paper towels than can indicate contamination; nanocrystalline cellulose composites that can replace materials in aircraft; wood-based textiles (such as rayon); and cross-laminated timber – a technology that produces strong beams and panels for construction products.

As the CEO of a security and specialty pulp and paper company, we are in the process of transforming Quebec’s Thurso mill from a traditional pulp mill to a specialty dissolving pulp operation. Dissolving pulp, a chemically refined bleached pulp of pure cellulose fibers extracted from trees that are used to produce rayon, is a popular cotton substitute in China and other markets. With our Quebec facility, we are transforming an under-utilized asset which struggled for market-share in the low-value add commodity marketplace. The evolution to dissolving pulp from traditional pulp metamorphoses the mill into a globally competitive, low-cost producer with a sustainable and profitable long-term future.

The future of the forestry sector is here today and it offers a bold, innovative, profitable and environmentally conscious path for the industry. Our global concern to reduce greenhouse gas emissions leads us through the forest to invest in renewable energy technologies that use wood fibre. As more forestry firms invest in technologies to increase their reliance on biomass for fuel versus fossil fuels, we drive the future of the forest sector to develop new biotechnologies, new jobs and greener prospects.

As our global forestry sector expands and leads the way to produce new and innovative bioproducts, we will experience greatly enhanced employment opportunities and financial returns than from traditional stand-alone mills. By incorporating new technologies into existing mills, we can ensure that these integrated operations will utilize all parts of the trees and extract the most value possible to ensure an environmentally friendly, sustainable, and profitable future.

About the Author:
As Fortress Paper’s Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Chadwick Wasilenkoff, oversees the company’s production of security and other specialty papers. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Wasilenkoff is an established entrepreneur with extensive capital markets experience specializing in the resource industry and currently serves as a director with various publicly listed companies.

SOURCE:
Vancouver Sun: “Future of Canada’s Forestry Sector is Renewable”
The Windsor Star: “A Renewable Forestry”
International Forest Industries: “Future of Canada’s Forestry Sector is Renewable”
The Post-Journal: “Future Of Global Forestry Sector Is Renewable”