DIVESTITURES / SPINOFF Footnote

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2017

Discontinued Operations and Disposal Groups [Abstract]

Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations, Disclosure [Note Text Block]

NOTE 8 - DIVESTITURES / SPINOFF

Other Divestitures and Impairments

2016: On March 14, 2016, the Company announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to sell its corrugated packaging business in China and Southeast Asia to Xiamen Bridge Hexing Equity Investment Partnership Enterprise. The sale of this business was completed on June 30, 2016. Under the terms of the transaction and after post-closing adjustments, International Paper received a total of approximately RMB 957 million (approximately $144 million at the June 30, 2016 exchange rate), which included the buyer's assumption of the liability for outstanding loans of approximately $55 million which are payable up to three years from the closing of the sale. In the first quarter of 2017, a $5 million payment was received on the remaining outstanding loans and as of March 31, 2017, the remaining payments to be received related to the assumed loans totaled $9 million.

Subsequent to the announced agreement in March 2016, a determination was made that the current book value of the asset group exceeded its estimated fair value of $155 million which was the agreed upon selling price, less costs incurred to sell. As a result, a pre-tax charge of $37 million was recorded during the first quarter of 2016 in the Company's Industrial Packaging segment to write down the long-lived assets of this business to their estimated fair value.

The amount of pre-tax losses related to the IP Asia Packaging business included in the Company's consolidated statement of operations were $41 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016.