DS Smith set to complete Spanish acquisition

United Kingdom-based packaging firm DS Smith says a Spanish regulatory commission (the CNMV) has announced that nearly 99 percent of shareholders of Spain-based Papeles y Cartones de Europa S.A., known as Europac, have agreed to an acquisition offer made by DS Smith.

According to the CNMV, the result of the tender offer launched by DS Smith in early December 2018 was a 98.8 percent acceptance rate “of the total share capital of Europac.” DS Smith says this final condition of its proposed acquisition of Europac means settlement and completion of the acquisition should be completed by the end of January. In 2018, DS Smith’s offer price was €16.80 ($21.97) per Europac share.

“I am delighted with the support from Europac shareholders,” states Miles Roberts, DS Smith group chief executive. “We look forward to welcoming Europac employees into the DS Smith Group and integrating the businesses to the benefit of all our stakeholders. This acquisition is a fantastic opportunity to enhance our customer coverage and offering in this important region.”

DS Smith announced the proposed acquisition of Europac in June 2018, describing Europac as “a highly complementary, vertically integrated packaging business based in Spain with a diversified customer portfolio and strong customer relationships.”

The company also stated the acquisition provided “exceptional scale opportunity to enhance DS Smith’s customer offer in a key packaging growth region [and a] clear opportunity to develop Europac’s packaging assets.” The company has plant locations in Spain, France and Portugal.

According to its website, Europac uses forest resources for some of the feedstock at its paper mills, but also states, “We cover a large part of our raw material needs by recovering some 355,000 metric tons of paper via our six waste management centers.”