The company's paper mill plant is key part of the Koochiching County economy and one of the state's biggest paper and pulp mills, employing about 950 workers. Madison Dearborn Partners, a big Chicago investment firm, will pay $3.2 billion for the Idaho-based company's wood-industry assets, which include 22 plywood and lumber-related plants, five paper mills and 2.3 million acres of timberland. Boise Cascade says it will change its name to OfficeMax, the name of the Cleveland-based office products company it bought last year for $1.2 billion.

The new owners currently plan no changes for the plant's employees. Boise Cascade has invested heavily in its International Falls facility over the past 15 years, according to timber industry officials.

The paper industry is becoming dominated by global companies that can better squeeze out profits through economies of scale. Sappi Limited, a giant South African papermaker, bought Potlatch Corp.'s big Cloquet mill in 2002. Two years before that, Swedish papermaker Stora Enso Oyj bought Wisconsin-based Consolidated Papers, including its mill in Duluth.