International Paper Company

International Paper Company is an American producer of renewable fiber-based packaging products and one of the world's largest manufacturers of containerboard and corrugated packaging, generating $23.6 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. The company operates roughly 30 containerboard mills and over 300 converting and packaging plants across North America, Europe, Latin America, and North Africa, employing approximately 62,600 people.

This is a story about a 128-year-old industrial company attempting one of the most aggressive transformations in its history. Over the past two years, International Paper has sold its cellulose fibers business, acquired UK-based DS Smith for $9.9 billion, closed three North American containerboard mills, launched a plant-by-plant operational overhaul called the 80/20 performance system, and announced plans to separate into two publicly traded companies — one focused on North America, the other on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Along the way it has taken $3.2 billion in special charges, including a $2.5 billion goodwill impairment on the DS Smith acquisition less than twelve months after closing it. The market is now pricing the company at about 10.4 times trailing adjusted EBITDA — roughly in line with packaging peers but without credit for the $5 billion EBITDA target management has set for 2027.

The file turns on a single question: whether the self-help story — cost-outs, footprint optimization, commercial wins, and a sum-of-the-parts catalyst — can outrun the macro headwinds of inflation, flat demand, and geopolitical disruption that have consumed nearly every efficiency gain produced so far. The operational improvements are real, but they have been a treadmill. The test is whether the treadmill slows down.