Graphic Packaging’s stock closed at $12.42 on February 3, 2026. Before the first of three disclosures at the center of a securities class action, it traded at $25.31.
The suit covers investors who bought Graphic Packaging Holding Company (NYSE: GPK) securities between February 4, 2025 and February 2, 2026. Levi & Korsinsky, a law firm, announced the case, saying investors have until July 6, 2026 to seek lead plaintiff status.
What the complaint says
The complaint argues the packaging maker let inventory pile up through 2025 and understated how serious that was. Management, it says, repeatedly told investors the elevated stock was deliberate and temporary, tied to the startup of a new recycled paperboard mill in Waco, Texas. The buildup would “wash through pretty quickly” once the mill came online, executives said, and the company would “harvest that working capital.”
The filing says the opposite happened. First-quarter 2025 revenue fell 6.2% from a year earlier to $2.12 billion, $10 million short of consensus estimates, on volume declines the company had played down. Management said it would “aggressively match supply and demand” and “run to demand,” yet inventory kept building.
The curtailments
In the third quarter of 2025, the company disclosed a projected $15 million hit to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) from fourth-quarter production curtailments. On December 8, 2025, it disclosed another $15 million in curtailment costs after speeding up inventory reduction plans that had been scheduled for 2026. By the fourth quarter, it projected a $130 million negative EBITDA impact in 2026 from the cumulative reduction actions. The incoming chief executive started a review of operations.
The complaint also points to what executives said about demand. On the second-quarter earnings call in July 2025, management described customer demand as “strong” and “steady” and cited promotional activity driving “modestly better than expected volumes.” Within months the company was cutting production. When competitors were “running for cash,” the filing says, Graphic Packaging claimed it was protecting margins, a framing the complaint says hid its own inventory glut.
The stock
Shares fell from $25.31 to $21.37, a drop of $3.94, after the first corrective disclosure. They lost another $1.35 and $2.36 after the second and third.
“The complaint raises serious questions about whether investors received accurate information about inventory conditions that were already materially impacting Graphic Packaging’s operations and financial trajectory,” said Joseph E. Levi of Levi & Korsinsky.
The allegations are claims in a lawsuit and have not been proven.
