Smurfit-Stone/WestRock

Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation was the world's largest manufacturer of paperboard and paper-based packaging products, including containerboard, corrugated containers, folding cartons, paper bags and sacks, and kraft paper. The company's facilities numbered some 350 in 18 countries. Smurfit-Stone was formed in 1998 through the merger of Stone Container Corporation and Jefferson Smurfit Corporation. Stone Container's beginnings went back to 1926 when Joseph Stone, a Russian immigrant, left his position as a salesman for a paper jobber and, with his life savings of $1,500 and his sons Norman and Marvin, created J.H. Stone & Sons. Ireland-based packaging conglomerate Jefferson Smurfit Group plc built a U.S. base through a series of shrewd acquisitions of financially troubled paper companies, which Smurfit swiftly turned around. It made its first move into the United States in 1974 when it acquired a 40 percent interest in Time Industries Inc., a small ($32 million in sales) Chicago-based maker of paperboard and packaging products. By 1977 Smurfit had gained full ownership of Time Industries, which was renamed Smurfit Industries Inc. On May 27, 2011, Rock-Tenn, now WestRock, completed its $3.5 billion takeover of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.