Recent Trends

Greetings;

Welcome to the Tiger Packaging website, and our first newsletter.

The purpose of our website is to introduce you, the commercial purchaser, to our company. We seek to aid in educating you on our industry, our company, and to help you purchase your corrugated products and displays from us.

As our century comes to an end, we are faced with the issue of consolidation. The large are becoming larger -- and the smaller, are becoming more precious. This has been fueled by the merger of Stone Container and Jefferson Smurfit Corp., the number one and number three linerboard and carton producers in the world. The new company is an even larger number one. Not to feel left out of this frenzy is the merger of International Paper and the linerboard mills and corrugated carton plants of Union Camp Corp. More mergers are likely to occur.

As the field of competitors is narrowed, and unprofitable linerboard mills and carton plants are closed, paper prices are sure to escalate. This will surely be followed by escalating prices for the cartons and display their producing plants.

On a more regional basis, say the New York Metropolitan market place, we have seen numerous shutdowns of carton plants over the years. Lately, the more notable include the shutdowns of Republic Container and Express Container Corp. These two old and respected independents have had their sales and equipment acquired by National Packaging Corp. National Packaging has also acquired the Trenton, NJ facility of Union camp. Rumors are flying of even more independents closing down, as well as a local

  integrated producer in Jersey City, NJ. It has not been all that long since International Paper closed their Tallman, NY plant.  Maybe four years. Well, sounds gloomy, But it is not really.

This activity is not indigenous to the paper products industry, but is also happening in the oil, telecommunications, and automotive industries. As a stock holder, this is great. As a customer, well, let's wait and see.

Official board markets, an industry publication report in their 5/1/99 issue that box buyers are paying more for their cartons now an average of 8% more. The reasons listed for this are:

  • Rising containerboard prices

  • Mill and box plant inventories are down

  • Planned downtime at mills

  • Linerboard exports to Asia are up

  • Mills are loosing money because their prices are to low

Seems interesting, that these companies are loosing money, yet their stock prices continue to rise.

As the paper box industry tries to return to more profitable times, we should also note that the Americans and Canadians produce the best box board paper and the best cartons in the world. Nowhere else on earth can our paper, cartons, graphics, and services be surpassed. Maybe the best is worth a little more.

 

 
Site Designed & Maintained by:
Computer Help & Web Design