BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Packaging to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up buyers
Private equity firms and PE-backed platform consolidators acquiring for roll-up, add-on, or platform plays. Pricing tends to lead the market for fee-viable scale, with multi-bidder competitive processes above the EBITDA floor.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 8.75x across 50 disclosed deals (P25: 6.13x, P75: 10.54x). Median EV/Revenue 0.99x across 61 deals. Median deal value: $425.12M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 61 deals total (7 from 2018+), filtered to Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquirers of packaging businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Glencoe Capital, LLC (3) · La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (2) · WestRock Company (:WRK) (2) · Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P. (2) · Silgan Holdings Inc. (2) · Pactiv Evergreen Inc. (:PTVE) (2)
Recent disclosed deals
Private Equity / PE-Backed Roll-Up acquisitions of packaging businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Sealed Air Corporation | Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC | $10312.9M | 9.4x | 1.93x |
| 2022 | Intertape Polymer Group Inc. | Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. | $2612.9M | 11.5x | 1.68x |
| 2022 | NEENAH PAPER, INC. | Mativ Holdings, Inc. | $1027.9M | 10.0x | 1.14x |
| 2022 | Resolute Forest Products Inc. | Domtar Corporation (:UFS) | $2458.1M | 3.0x | 0.70x |
| 2021 | Verso Corporation | BillerudKorsnäs Inc. | $645.3M | 5.8x | 0.51x |
| 2020 | IPL Plastics Inc. | La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec | $724.5M | 7.6x | 1.19x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Private equity acquirers price for scale and roll-up arbitrage. They pay up for businesses that fit a platform thesis — recurring revenue mix above 30%, technician/professional depth, clean financials, and a management layer that survives integration. The same packaging can command 1.5x to 2x the multiple of an individual-buyer transaction simply because the PE buyer is acquiring a platform piece, not an owner-operated shop.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to packaging businesses acquired by private equity / pe-backed roll-up buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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