NATCHEZ – A proposed employee buyout of the former International Paper Natchez mill has ended, officials with the company working on the plan said Tuesday.

“It is with much sadness that Natchez Fiber ends its efforts or puts them on hold,” said Monty Payne, chairman of the board of Natchez Fiber Inc., which was organized months ago to purchase the 50-year-old mill.

Payne, international representative of union group Pace International,

and former IP employees on the Natchez Fiber board of directors expressed some hope that another plan could emerge, saying the company “was and is very close” to success and would work with any other agency with a plan to save some of the more than 600 jobs that were lost when the mill closed in July.

“We are aware of another possibility but can’t give any details,” Payne said. “But to my knowledge it is not an employee group.”

Board member Darryl Cooley, a 35-year employee at the mill, said Natchez Fiber founders will look for any opportunity to assist in other buyout efforts. “We would like to have seen an ESOP work there, but we’ve made a pledge to help whatever organization or agency is trying to put something together.”

Natchez Fiber had worked for months with

commercial banks, venture capitalists and local, state and federal officials to raise funds to buy the mill through an employee stock option plan, or ESOP. The Natchez mill was the only IP plant producing chemical cellulose, which suffered from a soft market in recent years.

The recent resignation of Bob Taylor, a former IP Natchez mill manager, as CEO of Natchez Fiber was the turning point leading to an end to the company’s buyout efforts, Payne said.

“We had a plan, and we had a leader. Bob Taylor put many hours into this to make it successful,” Payne said. “When he left, we had a big hill to climb.”

Taylor had agreed to give six months to the effort, said consultant Frank Adams of Asheville, N.C., who has worked to facilitate the negotiations between Natchez Fiber and IP.

“He committed to six months, and he stayed for longer than that,” Adams said. “Time ran out on us. We were so close to having all the financial backing lined up.”

A new CEO would have to begin the process again, Payne said, setting back the timetable by 60 to 90 days and putting the company in the middle of winter.

“The last time we talked to IP, they were adamant that they would put no more money into this facility,” Payne said. “There are certain things that have to be protected, and it takes money to protect them.”

Getting IP to agree to preserve the equipment has been one of the challenges, Payne said. “Properly mothballed, it could stay there for years. But it takes money and manpower to do that. Whoever buys the mill will have to look at all of that.”