Jefferson Smurfit Group and Kappa Packaging announced a proposal to merge their respective operations. The merger is subject to a number of conditions including EU competition approval and consultation with the relevant employee representative organizations.
The merged company would have operations in 23 European and 9 Latin American countries, with capacity that would include 6.1 million metric tons of containerboard and 5.1 million metric tons of corrugated.
The combined companies would comprise JSG's leading market position in Latin America and existing market positions in Western and Southern Europe with Kappa's positions in Northern and Eastern Europe. The combined company would become a world leader in corrugated, a European leader in containerboard and retain leading market positions, in both paper grades, in Latin America.
The ownership structure, under this proposal, would be such that JSG's existing shareholders own 58.3 percent of the combined company while Kappa's existing shareholders own 41.7 percent.
It is proposed that the merged entity would be named Smurfit Kappa Group. The proposed Board, for the merged entity, is: Chairman M.W.J. Smurfit; Deputy Chairman, Frits Beurskens; CEO, Gary McGann; President and COO, and Tony Smurfit; CFO, Ian Curley.