BUCKSPORT, Maine (From The Bangor Daily News) -- Verso Paper has reached an agreement to sell its Bucksport mill and related power generation assets to a subsidiary of the Montreal-based American Iron and Metal in January for about $60 million.

Verso reached the sale agreement Friday and disclosed the sale in a filing Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The mill started informing employees of the sale around 4 p.m. on Monday, Verso spokesman Bill Cohen said Monday evening.

"Basically we told them that we had a purchase and sale agreement. The only thing we knew for sure is that AIM was going to operate the power island," he said.

"Beyond that, we were going to be spending time with AIM over the next few days figuring out what the transition would look like and what the plan was, that we didn't know any more than that but as soon as we did, we'd let folks know," he added.

Verso last year sold its mill in Sartell, Minnesota, to AIM Development, the subsidiary of American Iron and Metal. The company demolished and redeveloped that mill site, which had been damaged by a May 2012 explosion and fire.

It was not clear late Monday whether AIM planned to restart the mill. The company also was a bidder for the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket but was unsuccessful.

"Those are all decisions that AIM is going to be making and to be honest, again we're just going over the next few days have some conversation with them around what a transition will look like and hopefully learn a little bit more about what they intend to do. We're going to work with them so that process is just underway," Cohen said.

"My caution is to everybody to be patient with us. We don't know a lot detail, and they are going to decide what they're going to do and how they're going to do it, so we'll have to wait and see," he said.

On its website, the parent company describes itself as "one of the most innovative recycling companies in the world," focused on metal recycling.

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