Rexam plc was a British-based multinational consumer packaging company headquartered in London, England. After spending much of its life as a paper producer known as Bowater, it diversified and became a leading manufacturer of beverage cans. It had 55 plants in over 20 countries across Asia, Europe, North America and South America. In June 2016, Rexam was acquired by Ball Corporation for $8.4 billion.

Manchester-born William Vansittart Bowater trained as a manager with James Wrigley and Sons, a paper making business based in Manchester. Having been dismissed in 1881 at age 43, Bowater decided to establish himself as a paper agent in London.

In a quickly expanding market, Bowater later secured contracts to supply newsprint to two of the leading publishing entrepreneurs: Alfred Harmsworth, then publisher of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror; and Edward Lloyd, publisher of the Daily Chronicle. The company was subsequently renamed W.V. Bowater and Sons after three of Bowater's sons joined the business, but as an agent the business had few staff: Bowater and his three sons as partner; six clerks; two typists; and an office boy.

After Bowater's death in 1907, in 1910, the company became a private limited liability company, led by Thomas Vansittart Bowater. It expanded into large-scale dealing in waste paper, including the export of surplus newspapers to the Far East to enable their protection during shipping of tea plants. But after Thomas became Lord Mayor of London in 1913, the company was left to be run by his younger brothers, who expanded the business internationally. They established an office in Sydney to export newsprint to Australia, and the Hudson Packaging and Paper Company to market UK newsprint in the United States.

The start of the First World War brought about huge growth in the paper market, and the company was prepared for this having purchased a site for development as a pulp and paper making mill in Northfleet, on the south side of the Thames estuary near Gravesend. However, with restrictions on both raw materials and production imposed by the Ministry of War, construction was not started by contractor Armstrong Whitworth until post the end of the war. After the need to redesign the plant proposed by Armstrong Whitworth, eldest grandson Eric Bowater was put in charge of the project to select new secondary contractors. After he established full production from the plant in July 1925, in 1927 at the age of 32, he became chairman and managing director of W.V. Bowater and Sons.

In 1928, Eric sold stakes in the business to both Lord Rothermere and other investors, reducing the families stake to 40%. The resulting cash injection allowed a doubling of expansion at Northfleet through additional investment. In 1929, he agreed a deal with both Lord Rothermere and Beaverbrook Newspapers to establish a new pulp and paper mill beside the Manchester Ship Canal in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, the product from which would be consumed under long term supply deals to the newspapers of the two investors. Resultantly, by the end of 1930 with both plants online at full production, Bowater's mills output was 175,000 tons of newsprint per annum, 22% of the UK's total newsprint output.

However, the great depression cut badly into both investors businesses, resulting in a desperate need for cash injections. After Rothermere sold his stakes in both the main company and the Mersey mill, Beaverbrook took the same action, resulting the company being again completely in family control. As newspaper circulation rose again, Eric invested to double the capacity of the Mersey mills.

After the death of Edward Lloyd, in 1936 the company bought both the Sittingbourne and relatively new Kemsley Paper Mill. This brought the company's output to 500,000 tons per annum across four plants, producing 60% of British newsprint and the largest newsprint maker in Europe.