MONTREAL, Dec. 1 /CNW Telbec/ - AbitibiBowater and Starcom Paperworks
announced today that they have entered into an exclusive sales agreement for
the sale of AbitibiBowater's ECOLASER™ and ECOPAQUE LASER™ papers in the
forms channel. As a result of the agreement, Starcom has formed abSTAR, which
will act as the exclusive distributor for these products in the North American
business forms market.
    abSTAR's focus will be to provide ECOLASER and ECOPAQUE LASER in
converted laser rolls to high-volume forms printing and forms data centers.
"These products were designed for demanding laser applications. They are
economical, environmentally friendly and designed to perform," stated abStar's
President Chris Lederer. "We already have several large customers using
ECOLASER and ECOPAQUE LASER. In time, these papers are going to transform data
centers and the forms business in general."
    In addition, abSTAR will offer these AbitibiBowater product lines to
select distributors, and focus on government, hospital and corporate markets
for forms applications like stock tab and other computer papers, punched and
perforated laser cut sheets, engineering rolls, and a range of custom-printed
business forms.
    ECOLASER and ECOPAQUE LASER are AbitibiBowater's newest innovative,
cost-effective and environmentally friendly papers for laser printing. This
line of papers uses 50 percent less wood fiber than traditional bond paper for
the equivalent printing surface area and generates half the greenhouse gases
of a comparable bond. Because of their high opacity, lower basis weights of
these papers can be used, which gives the potential to provide significant
mailing savings to large business mailers.
    For information about the products and services offered by abSTAR, please
call 1 877 530-7611 or email sales@abstarpaper.com

    AbitibiBowater produces a wide range of newsprint, commercial printing
papers, market pulp and wood products. It is the eighth largest publicly
traded pulp and paper manufacturer in the world. AbitibiBowater owns or
operates 25 pulp and paper facilities and 30 wood products facilities located
in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea. Marketing
its products in more than 90 countries, the Company is also among the world's
largest recyclers of old newspapers and magazines, and has more third-party
certified sustainable forest land than any other company in the world.
AbitibiBowater's shares trade under the stock symbol ABH on both the New York
Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

    Starcom Paperworks will do business as abStar going forward. abStar
offers a wide range of stock and custom business forms to distributors and end
users throughout North America. The company's cornerstone facility in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania has state-of-the-art robotics and has produced more
environmentally friendly business forms over the past three decades than any
facility in the industry. abStar is a closely held Pennsylvania corporation.