PCA completes $1.8B purchase of Greif’s containerboard business

Packaging Corp. of America (PCA) has completed its acquisition of the containerboard business of Delaware, Ohio-based packaging company Greif Inc. in a deal worth $1.8 billion.

“The closing of this sale marks an important step forward for Greif,” Greif President and CEO Ole Rosgaard says. “This transaction unlocks immediate value for our shareholders and allows Greif to deliver stronger and more consistent earnings power, enhances our capital efficiency and accelerates debt reduction.”

The move originally was announced in July, and as a result of the divestment, Greif also is adjusting its 2025 full-year guidance to $507 million to $517 million of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Cas proceeds of the transaction will be allocated to debt repayment.

Greif’s containerboard business includes two mills, one in Gladstone, Virginia, and another in Massillon, Ohio, both of which produce recycled packaging and have a combined production capacity of 800,000 tons annually.

The business also includes eight sheet feeder and corrugated facilities across the United States.

“The mills nicely complement PCA’s system and will provide containerboard to support PCA’s continued corrugated products growth,” PCA CEO Mark Kowlzan said in a news release in July announcing the deal. “We expect to achieve significant synergies with minimal capital investment through our operational expertise and will identify even more opportunities within the combined system for future high return investments to grow with our corrugated and sheet feeder customers.”

PCA, based in Lake Forest, Illinois, operates eight mills and 86 corrugated products facilities and related sites across North America, and a Reuters report says this latest deal boosts the Lake Forest, Illinois-based company’s containerboard capacity to approximately 6 million tons annually.

“We have a great deal of respect for Greif and are very pleased to have reached agreement to acquire this business,” PCA President Tom Hassfurther said in July.

“Greif’s people have developed deep and lasting relationships with their customers, who we look forward to serving with Greif’s well capitalized facilities. It is a very strong cultural fit with us in terms of safety, innovation, growth and dedication to serving the needs of customers. We will apply the sales, customer service and operational expertise of the combined organization to even better serve our corrugated and sheet feeder customers and achieve additional growth and profitability.”

The move marks the third major packaging acquisition in the last year and, notably, the first to be entirely focused in North America.

In July 2024, Dublin-based Smurfit Kappa completed its $11 billion acquisition of Atlanta-based Westrock, then in February of this year, Memphis, Tennessee-based International Paper (IP) acquired London-based DS Smith in a deal worth $7.2 billion.

The U.S. corrugated box business generates up to $42 billion per year, according to Fibre Box Association figures cited by Fastmarkets RISI.

According to Fastmarkets, these three deals have a combined cost of about $20 billion and represent the most paid in a year in containerboard merger and acquisition activity.

Including Greif, PCA remains the third-largest containerboard producer in North America behind IP and Smurfit Westrock, according to Fastmarkets figures. IP’s containerboard capacity is about 29 percent, and Smurfit Westrock’s is about 20 percent. With the acquisition, PCA increases to nearly 16 percent, and the combined share of the largest three companies would be about 65 percent of the more than 40 million tons per year of regional containerboard capacity in the U.S.