New Report Discusses Mergers and Acquisition in Packaging Industry

BMO Capital Markets, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group has released its third annual report on packaging M&A activity, entitled Mergers and Acquisitions in the Packaging Industry: 2008 Annual Deal Review.

The report provides a comprehensive review of M&A in the packaging industry in North America as well as on a global basis over the last several years. The report provides an overview of reported M&A activity in 2008, examines M&A activity by sector, geography, acquirer type, size, and valuations, and provides a brief synopsis of each transaction announced during the year. In addition, the report examines packaging M&A trends over the last several years.

"The last year has been a challenging year for M&A activity in the packaging industry in terms of deal volume, valuations, and interest among all types of acquirers," said Doug Lawson, Managing Director and Head of the BMO Capital Markets packaging practice.

"After a record setting year in 2007, the M&A environment was affected by challenging market conditions in 2008. The credit crisis and a difficult economic environment combined with unprecedented spikes in resin, oil and paperboard prices resulted in a significant slowdown in packaging M&A activity," Lawson added. "While we expect the challenging conditions to persist in 2009, we believe that packaging industry fundamentals remain attractive over the medium-to-long term and the strong rationale for consolidation in the packaging sector continues to exist."

Source: BMO Capital Markets

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