Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. (Jacksonville, Fla., USA) and Tembec Inc., Montreal, Canada, ("Tembec") announced late this past week that, as a result of legislation that goes into effect this week, approval of the acquisition by Rayonier Advanced Materials of all of the outstanding shares of Tembec (the "Transaction") under the Investment Canada Act (the "ICA") is no longer required as a closing condition of the Transaction.

This new legislation, entitled the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act (the "Act"), provides for, among other things, the increase of the threshold for governmental approval of an acquisition of a Canadian business by certain non-Canadian investors (including investors from the United States, such as Rayonier Advanced Materials) from an enterprise value of the Canadian business of CDN$1 billion, to CDN$1.5 billion. As such, the Transaction falls below the new threshold.

Subject to obtaining other necessary and customary governmental approvals relating to certain forestry and energy-related agreements, as well as the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions to the Transaction, it is expected that the Transaction will be completed in the second half of the fourth quarter of 2017.