It contrasts sharply with the “cultural differences” Smurfit highlighted in 2018 that the group had with IP when he happily pointed out that an analyst had likened the pair to “oil and water”.īowles suggested that Sutton probably saw the opportunity to go after Smurfit Kappa in February 2018 when WestRock was preoccupied at the time with a deal, announced only weeks earlier, to buy Illinois-based KapStone Paper and Packaging for $3.5 billion. The corporate marriage, which will need approval of at least 75 per cent of Smurfit Kappa shareholders and over half of WestRock’s investors, as well as the nod from regulators, combines the largest cardboard group in Europe with the number two in the US

It is essentially a takeover by Smurfit Kappa that will see the group headquartered in Dublin, but will result in its Irish stock market quotation being dropped as it moves its main listing from London to Wall Street. The final deal, formally agreed this week, will create Smurfit WestRock, the world’s biggest packaging group with $34 billion (€31.7 billion) of annual revenues. Smurfit Kappa, which fought off a €9 billion unwanted bid from the US’s largest paper packaging group five years ago, confirmed that evening – on foot of a leak to the Wall Street Journal – that it was in tie-up talks with the Memphis-based IP’s nearest rival, WestRock, located some 650km to the east, in Atlanta.

The day wasn’t over when he learned that the Irish corporate giant had parked up near his own front lawn. Mark Sutton, the chairman and chief executive of nine years at International Paper (IP), who led a failed attempt in 2018 to take over Irish cardboard boxmaker Smurfit Kappa, told investors on Wednesday last week that he has started the search for his successor after four decades with the business.

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