[citation needed] The following year he bought Whitcoulls Group which at that time included a retail chain of bookstores as well as office and stationery concerns.
The SIG division Combibloc is the second largest food and drink carton packaging company in the world after Swedish giant Tetra Laval.
In 2003 Burns Philp performed a A$2.4 billion hostile takeover of the much larger food group Goodman Fielder before relisting it through an IPO.
The deal gave him total control of A$2.9 billion of Burns Philp cash, net of debt, which he could then use to further build on his Carter Holt Harvey empire.
[9] In 2006 Hart paid NZ$3.3 billion for Carter Holt Harvey (CHH), a New Zealand timber and paper business.
Soon after completing the purchase he began restructuring the struggling company starting with the sale of CHH's forests to US-based Hancock Timber Group for up to NZ$2 billion.
In April 2014, CHH announced the sale of its Pulp, Paper & Packaging business to a Japanese consortium for NZ$1.037 billion, with the deal closing in the second half of 2014.
While the operations are spread around the world, the RGHL corporate headquarters are located in the same office building as Reynolds Consumer Products in Lake Forest, Illinois.
On 17 June 2011, Reynolds Group Holdings announced its intention to acquire all of the outstanding stock of Graham Packaging Company, Inc, headquartered in York, Pennsylvania.
The acquisition was completed on 8 September 2011 for $25.50 per share (in cash), for a total enterprise value, including net debt, of approximately US$4.5 billion.
While Hart prefers to keep a low profile in the general media, he was notable for the launch of his 58 metre (190') luxury motor yacht Ulysses at Auckland's Viaduct Harbour in January 2006.
[needs update] Hart has a new 107-metre (351') long yacht under construction at Kleven Verft [nn] in the community of Ulstein in Norway.
[19][20] Hart's latest 107-metre (351') "expedition yacht," formerly named Ulysses, was completed and eventually launched on 3 September 2014, in Ulsteinvik, north of Oslo, at the Kleven Verft shipyard.
[24] In February 2022, Hart donated eight tractors, 30 fishing boats and a container of food to the people of Tonga following the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption and tsunami.