According to press reports Hart has been in talks with Amcor for the past
two months to form a joint venture between the separate corrugated and paper
businesses of his forest products company and the Australian packaging giant. A
combined operation would have revenue of $1bn a year.
However Hart has been rumoured to be taking over Amcor for at least 18
months with nothing concrete emerging. But following the highly publicised
cardboard cartel trial which ended up with Visy owner Richard Pratt being fined
$36m Amcor's brand has been seriously damaged, and analysts believe a takeover
could be in the offing. Amcor has spent its time since the trial slicing
through its staff, with redundancies from the top down, including former
general manager Darryl Roberts.
The deal could falter under competition rulings, as the carbaord box market
would be a duopoly with the new joint venture and Visy sharing the $2.2bn
Australian cardboard box market.
Hart has been on a spending spree since taking control of Carter Holt last
year for NZ$3.3bn (A$3.8bn), buying Swiss giant SIG, Blue Ridge Paper Products
of the US, and
beverage packaging assets from International Paper.
But NZ's richest man will still have an estimated $2.5bn or more to spend
after selling a 20 per cent stake in Goodman Fielder in October, and from a
yet-to-be-completed auction of Carter Holt's timber products business.
Before Hart took over Carter Holt, the company is understood to have offered
the Amcor board about $1.3 billion for its fibre packaging business three years
ago. Sources say he has since made approaches to Amcor for the business, to no
avail.
Carter Holt is the third-largest cardboard box company in Australia
behind Richard Pratt's Visy Packaging, which has 47 per cent of the market and
Amcor (less than 40 per cent). Between them, the three companies control the
cardboard box markets on both sides of the Tasman.
Amcor's cardboard box businesses in Australia
and New Zealand
have struggled due to a lack of investment and, although Amcor received immunity
from prosecution in the successful cartel case brought against Visy and Pratt,
it has suffered some damage to its brand.
