Introduction

We are pleased to share with you a summary update of market valuations and activities in the Asia Pacific Paper Packaging industry for the first half of 2019.

Paper Packaging is one the key sectors in which Armor specializes and closely follows market trends. Please contact us for a further discussion.

Valuations of Asia Pacific’s public companies have decreased over H1 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. Median EBITDA was 7.4x by the end of Q2-2019 vs. 8.8x in Q2-2018 – a decrease of nearly 15%.

Key highlights from the above table are that margins have improved since 2015. Over the same period, leverage of the industry constituents has decreased.

With the exception of Q1-2019, each quarter saw 7-9 deals in APAC’s Paper Packaging. Most of deals were in the lower mid market segment, while in Q2-2019 one transaction in Indonesia (see below) drove the most of the total transaction value.

Armor selected the largest M&A transactions across the region in 2019 H1 for which information on Implied Enterprise Value was available. The privatization of P.T. Fajar Surya Wisesa was the most remarkable transaction so far for 2019.