Investments

Investments in Joint Ventures

As of December 25, 2016, our investments in joint ventures of $15.6 million consisted of equity ownership interests in the following entities:



Company	Approximate % Ownership
Donohue Malbaie Inc.	49	%
Madison Paper Industries	40	%
Women in the World Media, LLC	30	%

We have investments in Donohue Malbaie Inc. (“Malbaie”), a Canadian newsprint company, Madison Paper Industries (“Madison”), a partnership that previously operated a supercalendered paper mill in Maine, and Women in the World Media, LLC, a live-event conference business.

Our investments above are accounted for under the equity method, and are recorded in “Investments in joint ventures” in our Consolidated Balance Sheets. Our proportionate shares of the operating results of our investments are recorded in “Loss from joint ventures” in our Consolidated Statements of Operations and in “Investments in joint ventures” in our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

In 2016, we had a loss from joint ventures of $36.3 million compared with a loss of $0.8 million in 2015. The increase was primarily due to losses related to the shutdown of the Madison paper mill, as described below, partially offset by increased income from our investment in Malbaie, which benefited from higher newsprint prices and the impact of a significantly weakened Canadian dollar.

In 2015, we had a loss from joint ventures of $0.8 million compared with a loss of $8.4 million in 2014. The improvement reflected an impairment charge of $9.2 million ($4.7 million after adjusting for tax and the allocation of the loss to the non-controlling interest) in 2014 related to our investment in Madison, as well as increased income from our investment in Malbaie, which benefited from higher newsprint prices and the impact of a significantly weakened Canadian dollar. This was partially offset by losses from our investment in Madison, which continued to face declining demand for supercalendered paper and was at a competitive disadvantage to Canadian mills selling paper to the United States, which benefited from the Canadian dollar value decline.

Madison

The Company and UPM-Kymmene Corporation (“UPM”), a Finnish paper manufacturing company, are partners through subsidiary companies in Madison. The Company’s 40% ownership of Madison is through an 80%-owned consolidated subsidiary that owns 50% of Madison. UPM owns 60% of Madison, including a 10% interest through a 20% noncontrolling interest in the consolidated subsidiary of the Company. In March 2016, UPM announced the closure of the paper mill, which occurred in May 2016. During the first quarter of 2016, we recognized $41.4 million in losses from joint ventures related to the announced closure of the paper mill. Our proportionate share of the loss is reduced by the 20% noncontrolling interest. As a result of the mill closure, we wrote our investment down to zero and recorded a liability of $28.3 million, reflecting our share of the impairment and losses incurred in 2016 by Madison and our funding obligation. These amounts are presented in “Accrued expenses and other” in our Consolidated Balance Sheets.

The Company’s joint venture in Madison is currently being liquidated and a plan is in place to sell assets (including hydro power assets) at the mill site. In the fourth quarter of 2016, Madison sold its non-hydro power assets at the mill site and we recognized a gain of $3.9 million related to the sale. We expect the sale of the hydro power assets to be completed in early 2017. We believe the proceeds from the sale will be more than sufficient to cover Madison’s obligations and therefore allow us to reverse our liability.

We received no distributions from Madison in 2016, 2015, or 2014.

The following table presents summarized unaudited balance sheet information for Madison, which follows a calendar year:



(In thousands)	December 31, 2016			December 31, 2015
Current assets	$	3,766		$	48,998
Noncurrent assets	8,944			54,473
Total assets	12,710			103,471
Current liabilities	1,373			13,101
Noncurrent liabilities	29,386			24,058
Total liabilities	30,759			37,159
Total equity	$	(18,049	)	$	66,312

The following table presents summarized unaudited income statement information for Madison, which follows a calendar year:



	For the Twelve Months Ended
(In thousands)	December 31, 2016			December 31, 2015			December 31, 2014
Revenues	$	40,523		$	133,319		$	155,807
Costs and expenses:
Cost of sales	(63,439		)	(126,292		)	(147,179		)
General and administrative	(62,759		)	(13,550		)	(17,505		)
	(126,198		)	(139,842		)	(164,684		)
Operating loss	(85,675		)	(6,523		)	(8,877		)
Other income	2			689			(9,977		)
Net loss	$	(85,673	)	$	(5,834	)	$	(18,854	)

Malbaie

We have a 49% equity interest in a Canadian newsprint company, Malbaie. The other 51% is owned by Resolute FP Canada Inc., a subsidiary of Resolute Forest Products Inc. (“Resolute”), a Delaware corporation. Resolute is a large global manufacturer of paper, market pulp and wood products. Malbaie manufactures newsprint on the paper machine it owns within Resolute’s paper mill in Clermont, Quebec. Malbaie is wholly dependent upon Resolute for its pulp, which is purchased by Malbaie from Resolute’s Clermont paper mill.

We purchase newsprint from Malbaie, and previously purchased supercalendered paper from Madison, at competitive prices. Such purchases totaled approximately $14 million in 2016, $12 million in 2015 and $20 million in 2014.

We received no distributions from Malbaie in 2016 and 2015 and $3.9 million in 2014.

Cost Method Investments

The aggregate carrying amount of cost method investments included in “Miscellaneous assets’’ in our Consolidated Balance Sheets were $13.6 million and $11.9 million for December 25, 2016 and December 27, 2015, respectively.