Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

November 13th, 2024 marked the beginning of the 1st ASEAN Pulp & Paper Summit, and ROXCEL was the one of two strategic partners for this event.

The event was attended by many large corporations such as APP, RGE, Smurfit Westrock, Solenis, Tietoevry, XSD, McKinsey, etc. and received over 200 attendees from many Asian countries.

We also held one panel discussion for “the future of packaging” and invited our suppliers to join.

Paper industry investment activity has permanently shifted to Asia. The share of Asia has grown from 35% in the early 2000s to 60–65% in the early 2010s and 78%–80% in the past few years. It is expected to maintain a similar level, driven by another round of capacity expansion in China and other Asian regions.

M&A is one of the hottest topics in ASEAN countries: should M&A make one company bigger by acquiring another’s capacity? Or make one more efficient and perhaps even reduce capacity? What is the purpose of M&A?

1. Can we buy at a better price together?
2. Can we achieve operational synergy?
3. Roofline strategy: can we offload volume when we can excessive supply?
4. Commercial strategy: It is not about combining capacity; it is more about combining sales force, consolidating, and upgrading service to our customers.