Private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice is in talks to take the company private, although deal terms are not immediately known.
- Sealed Air Corp is reportedly in talks with PE firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice for a buyout.
- Financial terms of the deal are not immediately known; the company had a market capitalization of $5.4 billion and nearly $4 billion in long-term debt.
- Stocktwits sentiment for SEE was ‘bearish.’
Sealed Air Corp.’s shares surged 21.6% in the after-market session on Wednesday, following a Wall Street Journal report saying that the packing company is in talks for a buyout.
Private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice was in discussions to take the company private, according to the report, which did not have financial terms.
Sealed Air had a market value of around $5.4 billion as of Wednesday’s close and a deal including a typical premium would value the company above that, the WSJ reported, citing unnamed sources. The company’s long-term debt was nearly $4 billion as of the end of the last quarter.
If the after-market move holds in Thursday’s session, it would be the stock’s best performance since March 2020.
CD&R, which invests across diverse sectors, held sizable stakes in the packaging industry. It owns packaging firms such as Mauser Group and Veritiv Corp, as well as sizable stakes in several industrial services firms.
Sealed Air is known for its patented Bubble Wrap cushioning and other innovative packing technologies. The company was founded in 1960 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979.
On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for the sparsely watched SEE ticker was ‘bearish’ as of late Wednesday, although message volume shifted to ‘high’ from ‘neutral.’
The news comes a week after the company released its quarterly results. Sealed Air’s third-quarter sales were flat at $1.35 billion, but net profit more than doubled to $186 million, mainly due to the reversal of accruals for uncertain tax positions.
In recent years, Sealed Air has doubled down on its core business areas. In 2017, it announced the sale of its cleaning and chemicals systems division, Diversey Care, and its food hygiene and cleaning business to Bain Capital Private Equity.
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