Company of the Month July 2021: Smurfit Kappa reports rise in revenue and profit

Pictured: Tony Smurfit, CEO Smurfit Kappa

Smurfit Kappa is the Business & Finance Company of the Month July 2021, in association with KPMG

Smurfit Kappa, the Dublin-based group, has reported an 11% rise in revenue and and 8% increase in profits for the first half of this year. The FTSE 100 company is a leading provider of paper-based packaging solutions worldwide and has approximately 46,000 employees at over 350 productions sites across 36 countries. It had a revenue of 8.5 billion euro last year. They produce corrugated packaging, containerboard and  ‘bag in box’ and is the only pan-American producer of containerboard and corrugated packaging.

In July, the group acquired Cartonbox, a folding carton company in northern Mexico. Now, the group has decided to buy Verzuolo, an Italian mill that produces containerboard which is used to make cardbaord boxes. The mill is located close to Savona in the northwest of Italy.

Chief executive of Smurfit Kappa, Tony Smurfit, has said of the acquisition: “We believe this acquisition represents another positive step for the group, our customers and all shareholders”, adding that the group “has a proven ability to identify, acquire, integrate and optimise complementary businesses”.

Smurfit Kappa was founded in 1934, making cardboard boxes for the Irish market. In 1938, it was acquired by Jefferson Smurfit and grew in size to be listed on the Irish Stock Exchange in 1964. In 1998, it merged with the Chicago-based Stone Container Corporation and in 2005, Jefferson Smurfit merged with Kappa Packaging, a Netherlands based company. It has its global headquarters in Dublin with regional headquarters in Amsterdam and Miami.