Mercer International Inc. announced that Steelhead Partners, LLC publicly announced on March 31, 2012, that it will reserve its decision to tender its common shares of Fibrek Inc., held by its affiliate, to the unsolicited insider bid made by AbitibiBowater Inc. Further, Steelhead announced that it would decide whether or not to tender to the Abitibi bid only once (and if) Abitibi's minimum tender condition was met.

Mercer urges Fibrek shareholders not to tender to the Abitibi bid, which, as of March 20, 2012, had received support of only approximately 46% of the Fibrek shares, which is almost entirely represented by THREE locked up shareholders. In order to be successful, the Abitibi bid requires a minimum tender of 50.01%. We therefore encourage Fibrek shareholders not to tender to the Abitibi bid, which requires your support in order to succeed. We urge shareholders to continue to support, and benefit from, the Mercer $1.30 superior offer.

A hearing before the Québec Bureau de décision et de révision (the "Bureau") remains set for Monday, April 2, 2012 to consider an application for a "cease trade" order and/or other appropriate relief in respect of the Abitibi bid. The Ontario Securities Commission, without commenting on the merits of our application to cease trade the Abitibi bid, including preventing Steelhead and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited from tendering their Fibrek shares to the Abitibi bid, determined last Friday that, although it had jurisdiction to hear the application, the proper forum for the application was before the Bureau.