Klöckner Pentaplast of America Inc. has bought the assets of extruder Greenway Plastics Industries Corp., gaining capacity to make thinner-gauge film and sheet.
Meantime, Klöckner also has firmed up plans to open its first production plant in Brazil.
Greenway had been owned by Innovative Plastics Corp. of Orangeburg, N.Y., a thermoformer of consumer packaging. The company launched Greenway in 1997 in Wayne, N.J.
Klöckner purchased the company's assets for an undisclosed price.
Greenway's Wayne facility will close, and Klöckner will shift two blown film lines to a 54,000-square-foot plant in Beaver, W.Va., said Klöckner spokeswoman Nancy Ryan.
The lure to Klöckner was Greenway's line of Barex acrylonitrile copolymer blown film, used for many consumer and industrial packaging applications, Ryan said. Greenway had been the sole North American extruder for the thin-gauge film and sheet, she said.
Klöckner already calenders a thicker Barex film and claims to be the largest producer of rigid films in the Americas.
``This gives us a different type of film vs. the calendered area that we do now,'' Ryan said. ``We're buying all the formulations and trade names.''
The specialty film provides good chemical and oxygen barrier resistance and frequently is used in such applications as transdermal patches and sample mailers and for a variety of medical, food and cosmetics products, Ryan said.
The company did not disclose how many employees will be affected by the plant closure. Innovative President Judith Hershaft could not be reached.
Innovative recorded sales of $34 million during its previous fiscal year, $23 million of that from its two other thermoforming operations, according to Plastics News' figures.
Klöckner also released more details about its plant due to open in January in Brazil. The company first decided in 1999 to launch the Brazil operations, but a weakening economy in South America put those plans on hold.
The company will open the facility with about 130,000 square feet in Cotia, Brazil, closer to Sao Paulo than the originally selected site of Salto. The plant will start with one PVC calendering line, which will serve pharmaceutical, thermoforming, credit card and stationery customers across Latin America.
After the facility opens, Klöckner plans to begin work on the second phase, adding a PVC coating line for pharmaceutical barrier films. A third phase is planned to expand the plant's capacity in specialty films. Klöckner already has a service center in Sao Paulo. The company did not provide employment or investment details for the new plant.
Klöckner ranked No. 15 among North American film and sheet extruders last year, with $400 million in sales, according to Plastics News estimates. The company is owned by private equity firm Cinven Ltd. of London.
The growth spurt is the first for Klöckner after a recent management shuffling. In August, the company named Michael Tubridy the new president of Klöckner Pentaplast of America Inc. in Gordonsville, Va., and promoted former President Thomas Goeke to chief operating officer of the Luxembourg-based parent company, Klöckner Pentaplast Group.
