Smurfit-Stone Purchases MeadWestvaco’s Mill and Operations

Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, the world’s largest integrated producer of paperboard and paper-based packaging products, purchased MeadWestvaco Corporation’s Stevenson, Alabama corrugating medium mill. The deal closed on September 30, 2002. The associated operations include seven corrugated container converting plants located in the U.S., approximately 82,000 acres of timberland in Tennessee and Alabama, a hardwood sawmill and related working capital assets. Smurfit-Stone paid US$350 million for the assets and an additional US$25 million over the next 12 months related to financing arrangements.

Smurfit-Stone’s legal acquisition team was led by Dean Jones, Canadian in-house counsel and assistant secretary in Montreal. Winston & Strawn in Chicago was external counsel to Smurfit-Stone, with a team directed by Joe Walsh and Brian Schafer.

MeadWestvaco’s legal acquisition team was led in-house by David Santez, associate general counsel and assistant secretary in Dayton, along with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP with a team led by David Friedman, John Furfaro, David Nagler, Sally Thurston, Gail Kendall, Eric Milne, Eric Colandrea, Manan Shah, Dawn Pacifico, Jared Grusd, James Talbot, Barbara Dunne and Ryan Jackson in New York and Kenneth Berlin in Washington, D.C.