KPS Capital Partners agreed to buy control of Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG’s consumer-packaging business, carving out the Vienna company’s folding-carton arm at an enterprise value of 2.4 billion euros, or about $2.8 billion.
The New York private-equity firm will own 70% of a new holding company for MM Packaging, and MM Group will keep the rest. The price works out to about nine times the unit’s expected 2026 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, MM Group said. The business makes folding cartons, labels and leaflets for food, drug, beauty and household brands from more than 50 plants in 19 countries and employs about 8,500 people. It is the world’s largest maker of secondary pharmaceutical packaging, the cartons and inserts that go around medicine bottles and blister packs. Operations in Iran and Tunisia are excluded.
Cash back to holders
MM Group expects to collect about 1.8 billion to 1.9 billion euros in cash at closing, after putting roughly 0.4 billion euros into its 30% stake. That stake could fall to as little as 20% if the business misses certain earnings targets for 2027, with no extra payment either way. The company said it would use the money to cut debt, pursue other opportunities and reward investors, and it plans a special distribution of 0.5 billion to 0.6 billion euros once the deal closes. MM Group expects to have net cash of 0.8 billion to 0.9 billion euros afterward and will keep its cartonboard and paper mills.
KPS, which manages about $19.1 billion and specializes in buying manufacturers, has invested across paper, board and metal packaging before. MM Packaging will run as a stand-alone company under its current name. Barclays and Citi advised KPS.
The deal is the latest example of a European industrial group selling a slower-growing division to a buyout firm while keeping a minority slice of the upside. It requires regulatory approvals and consultation with worker representatives in France, and is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
