Switzerland-based SIG Holding Ltd. will sell its extrusion blow molding equipment businesses, Kautex and Blowtec, to a German private equity firm, SIG announced April 27.
Adcuram Beteiligungs AG will acquire all shares of Kautex and Blowtec effective May 1. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal ends four years of ownership by SIG, a Neuhausen Rhine Falls, Switzerland, firm that said it now wants to focus on its core business of liquid packaging. SIG entered the blow molding machinery business in 2000 when it bought Germany's Krupp Kunststofftechnik GmbH from Thyssen Krupp AG.
SIG Kautex GmbH, based in Bonn, Germany, specializes in accumulator-head extrusion blow molding machines to make large parts such as automotive fuel tanks and industrial drums. Other Kautex machines - known as three-dimensional suction-blow molding machines - make complex technical parts, such as automotive ducts.
Blowtec GmbH, based in Troisdorf, Germany, makes machines to extrusion blow mold packaging such as polyethylene bottles.
In the United States, both are located at SIG Plastics Technologies (USA) Inc. in North Branch, N.J. Officials there did not have any comment the day the deal was announced.
The Munich, Germany-based investment firm picks up two companies with combined sales of about $90 million and 350 employees. Kautex generated 2003 sales of 43 million euros ($48 million) and has about 200 employees. Blowtec had sales of 37 million euros ($42 million) and employs about 150.
In 2002, a SIG executive disclosed the company wanted to sell Kautex. That same year, SIG decided to stop making Kautex machines in North Branch. While industry sources said SIG had considered selling Blowtec, the company denied it was for sale.
