Smurfit to float US arm in dollars 1.5bn refinancing

JEFFERSON SMURFIT, the Dublin packaging group run by the Irish industrialist Michael Smurfit, yesterday confirmed plans to float its US associate as part of a dollars 1.5bn ( pounds 1bn) refinancing package.

The deal will include a public offering of new shares in JSC, the US arm, and two bond issues worth dollars 600m. Smurfit owns 50 per cent of JSC; the other half is owned by a Morgan Stanley investment fund. Smurfit has agreed to subscribe for shares worth up to dollars 100m to leave its stake undiluted.

Smurfit has been keen to refinance the heavily leveraged US business for some time, but has been thwarted by the global recession in the packaging industry.

Jefferson Smurfit Corporation, based in Missouri, was merged with Container Corporation of America in 1989 to create JSC in a complex deal that left the company with large debts. It has 147 mills and converting plants in the US, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Smurfit has decided to take advantage of the upturn in stock markets, as well as the better climate for packaging. The industry has been hurt over the past few years by low prices, especially for linerboard, a market in which JSC is a big operator.

The company reported yesterday that linerboard prices had risen as it announced final-quarter results. Michael Pettigrew, Smurfit's company secretary, said another price rise was scheduled next month. But JSC's results reflected the poor market conditions that prevailed last year with turnover 2 per cent lower in the paper board and packaging division.

Restructuring costs of dollars 150m and accounting changes pushed net losses up to dollars 228.9m, against dollars 83.8m in 1992.

JSC plans to offer 14.7 million new shares in a public offering, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York. The stock being offered would represent about 14 per cent of the enlarged equity.

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