Jefferson Smurfit Corporation - the NASDAQ-listed company in which Smurfit has a 46 per cent stake - emerged from the $1.2 billion acquisition of Container Corporation of America by Smurfit and Morgan Stanley ten years ago. At the time, it was the biggest acquisition by an Irish company.

JS Corp was subsequently floated on the NASDAQ market in New York four years ago, at a price of $12 a share. Since then the share has share performance has been volatile, rising and falling in line with the cyclical nature of the American packaging industry.

Shortly after the $12 a share flotation, the shares rose as high as $22 within a few months of the April 1994 flotation before falling back to under $9 by the end of 1996. The share price gradually improved to once again rise above $20 last September only to fall back to $15 towards the end of last year. Since then the merger speculation has driven the shares up to their current level of between $20 and $21.