Castle Harlan to buy blow moulders of plastic pharmaceutical and chemical packaging
Private equity investment firm Castle Harlan of New York has agreed to buy two US blow-moulded packaging producers for approximately US$200m.
Private equity investment firm Castle Harlan of New York has agreed to buy two US blow-moulded packaging producers for approximately US$200m.
Castle Harlan is to buy Pretium Packaging of Chesterfield, MO, which makes PET and HDPE containers for the pharmaceutical, personal care and household markets.
Keith Harbison, Pretium's founder and current owner, will be a significant minority shareholder in the combined business and a board member.
Following the deal, Pretium will acquire PVC Container Corporation of Eatontown, NJ, the parent of Novapak Corporation, a portfolio company of Cleveland-based buyout firm Kirtland Capital. Novapak produces PET, PP, HDPE and in-line fluorinated HDPE containers for specialist chemical, personal care, healthcare, food, beverage, household and automotive applications.
The combined business will carry the Pretium Packaging name and be headquartered in Chesterfield, MO and will have sales of more than US$240m with 14 manufacturing plants in the US and Canada.
The current Pretium management team and certain members of the Novapak team will manage the company.
"Both Pretium and Novapak have focused on small-to-medium volume, custom bottle applications. Much of both companies" recent growth has come in PET bottles. The advantage for customers is that while Pretium has invested significantly in one-step, wide mouth PET technology and assets, Novapak has made significant investment in two-step, narrow neck PET and pre-form manufacturing," said George Abd, ceo of Pretium.
"The combination of these assets and capabilities will allow the merged company to offer customers a full range of one-step and two-step PET bottles, as well as extrusion blow-moulding and injection blow-moulding alternatives in HDPE and PP."
He added that there was "very little" overlap between the two companies" current customers.
Both transactions are subject to various conditions and are scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2010.