Medal winner McGann packs onto more board seats

As former Smurfit Kappa chief executive Gary McGann receives the RDS Gold Medal for Industry award today – there is an interview with him elsewhere in our supplement – it is interesting to see he has popped up on the board of another packaging firm linked to private equity outfit Madison Dearborn.

US-headquartered Multi-Packaging Solutions was floated on the New York stock exchange this month. It was bought in 2013 by Madison, which also took Smurfit private back in the glory years before refloating it in 2007 after merging it with Kappa.

McGann, who remains a non-executive director of Smurfit, has been appointed to the board of MPS. He received the blessing of his old employer – the two packaging businesses operate in completely different segments. Is that six board seats now for the “retired” McGann?

The link here appears to be Chicago-based Madison executive Tom Souleles, who was previously on the Smurfit board and also sits on the board of MPS with McGann. MPS got its flotation away this month at $13 a share, and was trading above $16 for much of this week. Nice start.