PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release

10/01/2004

GOULD PAPER CORPORATION COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF PRICE & PIERCE

Harry E. Gould, Jr., Chairman and President of Gould Paper Corporation, New York City, announced that Gould Paper has completed its acquisition of Price & Pierce from M-real Corporation. The acquisition of Price & Pierce includes its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Price & Pierce International, Inc., which operates in the United States; Price & Pierce Finland Oy, headquartered in Helsinki, with an additional office in Dubai; and Price & Pierce (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, which is headquartered in Singapore and has offices throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Price & Pierce has a long history of service in the paper and forest products sector, having been established in 1869. It continues today as a leading international sales agent and merchant of fine papers, pulp and packaging materials.

Mr. Gould stated, “The acquisition of Price & Pierce will add approximately 500,000 tons of mill purchases to our existing base of more than 1.5 million tons. To put this in perspective, two million tons of purchased goods would be approximately the same as the second largest merchant chain in Europe (including the U.K.).”

The acquisition of Price & Pierce comes only eight months after the acquisition of Salehurst Limited and seven months after the formation of WWF Paper & Board Limited. The former added a second operation in the U.K., joining WWF International UK Limited (purchased in February, 2002), as well as an operation headquartered in Paris. The latter added a third location in the U.K., based in Brentwood in Essex.

Mr. Gould added, “Since the paper industry is now global, it is the company’s intention to evolve into a 50/50 split of business between domestic and international sales. With the acquisition of Price & Pierce, Gould will now have attained a 70/30 split, leaving additional room for international acquisitions. However, we are still committed to growing domestically and are actively evaluating several opportunities concurrent with the purchase of Price & Pierce.”

Gould Paper Corporation, founded in 1924, is headquartered in New York City and has annual revenues in excess of $1 billion and is a member of the “quartet” that comprises North America’s largest distributors of printing and business papers.