Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 12 April 2012 -- /CNW Telbec/ -- AbitibiBowater Inc., doing business as Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: ABH) (TSX: ABH), today announced that all applicable conditions to its offer for Fibrek Inc. (TSX: FBK) have been satisfied and that it has taken up and accepted for payment the 60,831,859 shares deposited as of 11:59 p.m. on 11 April 2012. 

The tendered shares represent approximately 46.8% of the currently outstanding Fibrek shares. As aggregate consideration for the shares, Resolute will distribute approximately 1.7 million newly-issued shares of its common stock and CAD 33.5 million in cash through RFP Acquisition Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary.

The company also announced that the Bureau de révision et décision (Québec) has issued an order to cease trade, effective immediately, Fibrek's second shareholder rights plan, which its board adopted on 11 April.

In addition, to allow additional Fibrek shareholders to participate, the company announced that it has extended to 5:00 p.m. on 23 April the expiry time for its offer. As further described in the offer circular and other ancillary documentation related to the offer (as amended), Resolute intends to carry out a second step transaction to acquire the Fibrek shares not deposited in the offer.

The offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Fibrek made by Resolute, together with RFP Acquisition Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary, is more fully described in the offer circular and other ancillary documentation that Resolute filed on 15 December 2011, on the SEDAR Web site (www.sedar.com) maintained by the Canadian Securities Administrators, as varied and extended. The offer will expire at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on 23 April 2012, unless it is extended by Resolute.

Questions and requests for assistance or further information on how to tender Fibrek common shares to the offer should be directed to, and copies of the above referenced documents may be obtained by contacting, Georgeson at 1-866-598-0048 or by email at askus@georgeson.com.

Resolute Forest Products is a global leader in the forest products industry. The company has a diverse range of products, including newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp, and wood products. The company owns or operates 18 pulp and paper mills and 23 wood products facilities in the United States, Canada, and South Korea, and markets its products in more than 90 countries, Resolute has third-party certified 100% of its managed woodlands to sustainable forest management standards. The shares of Resolute Forest Products, formerly doing business as AbitibiBowater, trade under the stock symbol ABH on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Resolute and other member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada, and a number of environmental organizations, are partners in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. The group works to identify solutions to conservation issues that meet the goal of balancing equally the three pillars of sustainability linked to human activities: environmental, social and economic. Resolute is also a member of the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers program, in which businesses establish ambitious targets to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work aggressively toward achieving them.