Roger Stone plans paper acquisitions

Pulp & Paper, Aug 2005

CORPORATE STRATEGY

Roger Stone, a major presence in the U.S. and global containerboard and box business for more than the last 20 years, has founded a company that filed an initial public offering to raise $180 million for acquiring paper, packaging, and forest products companies. The group is called the Stone Arcade Acquisition Corp.

It filed a prospectus with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in May to sell 30 million units consisting of a share of common stock and two warrants for $6/unit.

With Stone as CEO of the new entity and Matthew Kaplan, his son-in-law, as the president, the company is barred from participating in the manufacture of boxes or containerboard until July 2007 due to their involvement in the $400-million sale of Box USA to International Paper last year, according to the prospectus.

Upon successful completion of the offering, existing shareholders would hold 20% of Stone Arcade's common stock. If no acquisition is completed within 18 months, the entity would be dissolved and assets would be distributed to existing shareholders.

Stone was the chairman and CEO of Stone Container Corp., which was involved in the major U.S. containerboard merger with Jefferson Smurfit Corp. in November 1998. The merger created Smurfit-Stone Container as the largest board and box maker in the world, based on capacity. At the time of the merger, Stone Container was the largest containerboard producer in the U.S.