Americans bidding for DS Smith plot UK listing
As SBF makes last-ditch bid for leniency, it’s . . .
THE US paper giant bidding for one of Britain’s biggest packaging companies is looking at listing shares in London should the deal go through.
In a dramatic move on Tuesday evening, International Paper hijacked a proposed takeover of DS Smith by fellow FTSE 100 firm Mondi.
The US company offered to pay £5.7bn for DS Smith, blowing Mondi’s £5.1bn bid out of the water.
Sources last night told the Mail that International Paper would consider a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange alongside the company’s main listing in New York. The Americans are also looking at folding International Paper’s European operations into DS Smith, which would become a subsidiary led by the London-based firm’s current management.
But, if the deal goes ahead, it still means another British company falling into foreign ownership.
DS Smith was founded in London in 1940 as a family-run box-making business.
It now employs more than 30,000 workers in 30 countries and has been listed in London since 1986. The company makes products such as trays to carry cans and bottles, and packaging for food.
Last month, Mondi offered to pay 373p per share for the firm. Analysts said at the time that the proposal could leave the door open for a rival bid.
The American offer values DS Smith’s shares at 415p each. DS Smith said: ‘The board acknowledges the strategic merits and potential for value creation through a combination with International Paper.
‘Accordingly, the board is progressing its discussions with International Paper.’
It said it was also continuing its talks with Mondi.
Tennessee-based International Paper has until April 23 to make a firm offer.
The bidding war comes amid an exodus of companies from the London Stock Exchange. US private equity giant KKR last week confirmed a £1.3bn takeover of Glasgow-based Smart Metering Systems. This month bosses of British haulage firm Wincanton backed a £762m offer from US logistics company GXO.
Last year, rival FTSE 100 paper and packaging firm Smurfit Kappa announced an £11bn mega-merger with US giant Westrock. Under the terms of the deal, which is yet to complete, Smurfit will move its primary listing to New York while retaining a secondary listing in London.
Earlier this year, investment bank Peel Hunt warned that the City faces a ‘relentless’ exodus of companies.
‘This is driven by the low UK valuations, which makes it an attractive hunting ground for acquirers,’ analysts said.
He waS one of the world’s youngest billionaires who rubbed shoulders with everyone from Bill Clinton to Gisele Bundchen. So spending his 32nd birthday behind bars this month will have come as quite a shock to Sam BankmanFried, the one- time wunderkind of the cryptocurrency world.
The disgraced tycoon today finds out how many birthdays he will mark from a prison cell – and whether he will ever celebrate one as a free man again.
SBF, as he is widely known, will be sentenced this evening for what has been described as ‘one of the biggest financial frauds in american history’.
The stakes could not be higher – and he yesterday made a lastditch bid for leniency in the form of a collection of letters from supporters to the judge.
One even sought to use the fact he was a vegan in his favour and said he would be ‘an asset to society’ if shown leniency.
In a submission, the friend wrote: ‘Sam felt deeply for every living being, farm animals included – so much so that he adhered to a vegan diet and convinced several others in our living group to become vegan too. He took every actionable step he could to reduce suffering.’
The maximum sentence for the FTX founder, described in court as a ‘shy’ man who ‘often struggled socially’, is 110 years, though this seems highly unlikely.
Having been incarcerated since august when his bail was revoked, the prosecution is pushing for between 40 and 50 years for his ‘unmatched greed and hubris’.
His lawyers have argued that this would amount to a ‘death-inprison’ sentence and show the US government simply ‘wants to break’ him.
THey say he has already been harshly punished by poor conditions in the Brooklyn jail where he languished last summer. His crime, and the to-ing and fro-ing over the appropriate sentence, has brought comparisons with fraudster Bernie Madoff who died in prison in 2021, aged 82, while serving 150 years.
His crimes began before Bankman-Fried was even born.
Having built FTX into one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges where users bought and sold bitcoin and other digital currencies, SBF was tipped to become the first trillionaire to walk the planet.
with his fortune came fame and appearances alongside world leaders such as Clinton and Tony Blair as well as pop star Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom.
as ever, he was dressed in his trademark uniform of baggy shorts and old T-shirts
His brushes with celebrity did not come cheap and he lavished eye-watering sums on stars for endorsements – paying american football icon Tom Brady £45m and his then-wife Bundchen £16m to appear in adverts for FTX.
There was even talk of a £25ma-year deal with Taylor Swift but it never came to fruition.
Like many other techies, SBF was a self-proclaimed believer in ‘ effective altruism’ and had pledged to give his money to good causes.
But it was not just charitable giving that excited him. He contributed more than £30m to the US elections in 2022, mostly to the Democrats.
all the while he lived in luxury in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, in a £25m penthouse with co-workers including one-time girlfriend Caroline ellison.
His world came crashing down in 2022 when his business empire went from £21bn to virtually nothing in days in one of the most dramatic financial collapses the world has ever seen.
as talk of fraud circulated, SBF was arrested in the Bahamas in December that year and extradited to the US where he was charged with seven counts of fraud and money laundering.
ellison, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to her part and was later testified against Bankman-Fried at his trial. FTX co-founder Gary wang also pleaded guilty to several charges.
Having heard that SBF stole some £8bn from users of his FTX crypto exchange –and spent it on his lavish lifestyle, property, risky investments and political donations – a New york jury found him guilty of all seven counts in November last year.
US attorney Damian williams said: ‘Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in american history. This case has always been about lying, cheating and stealing and we have no patience for it.’ and so to today’s sentencing. In submissions to judge Lewis Kaplan, prosecutors wrote: ‘The sheer scale of Bankman-Fried’s fraud calls for severe punishment. His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris, of courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money.’
They added: ‘ even now Bankmanrefuses to admit what he did was wrong.’
New FTX boss John Ray, who was brought in to oversee the bankruptcy and to recover as much money as possible, said that SBF ‘continues to live a life of delusion’ having spent funds on ‘ luxury homes, private jets and overpriced speculative ventures’.
The corporate recovery expert added: ‘Customers will never be in the same position they would have been had they not crossed paths with Bankman-Fried and his so-called brand of altruism.’
SBF’s own lawyers have hit back, saying the prosecution was attempting to paint him as ‘a depraved super-villain’.
arguing that a sentence of five decades ‘adopts a medieval view of punishment to reach what amounts to a death-in-prison sentencing recommendation’, they added: ‘That is not justice.’
and Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, told the judge that they feared for their son’s life in prison.
‘His father and I face the very real possibility that we will not live long enough to see him freed,’ his mother wrote.
‘I would gladly change places with him if I could.’
He, and they, will find out his fate in a matter of hours.