AptarGroup to buy CCL closure business
CRYSTAL LAKE, ILL. - AptarGroup Inc. is acquiring all the assets of CCL Industries Inc.'s dispensing closure business in a cash deal worth about $21 million (C$24 million).
The public companies announced the deal Jan. 24. CCL, based in Toronto, said CCL Dispensing Systems LLC of Libertyville, Ill., had sales of $22 million (C$26 million) in 2005. The deal is scheduled to close in early February.
``We continue to grow our dispensing closure business in the U.S. We're in a similar line and we see it as a vehicle to help build that line,'' said Stephen Hagge, AptarGroup executive vice president and chief financial officer, in a telephone interview.
He said AptarGroup, which is based in Crystal Lake, is quite familiar with CCL Dispensing and had been using the company as a contract manufacturer.
Hagge said the dispensing closure market has been consolidating, but ``at AptarGroup it is about 25 percent of our growth and we continue to see excellent growth potential as we go forward.''
The acquisition gives the company added capacity and complements a plant AptarGroup has outside of Milwaukee, he said. CCL also adds new customers to AptarGroup
AptarGroup supplies dispensing systems for personal-care, fragrance and cosmetics, pharmaceutical, household, and food and beverage markets. It has manufacturing facilities in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
CCL said in a news release that the sale of CCL Dispensing will allow it to focus on the decorated plastic tube segment of its plastic packaging business. The company manufactures pressure sensitive labels, aluminum containers and plastic tubes.
OfficeMax closing Wash. siding plant
ITASCA, ILL. - Itasca-based OfficeMax Inc. will shut down its 194,000-square-foot recycling and composite siding plant in Satsop, Wash., as part of a corporate restructuring that also includes the closing of 110 OfficeMax retail stores.
The composite siding plant has been reported as a discontinued operation since 2004. The plant will close sometime in the first quarter, the company reported this month as part of its 2006 turnaround strategy.
At press time, it was unclear how many people work at the former Boise Cascade Corp. facility and how much siding it produces; however, the plant originally was expected to employ about 120.
Boise Cascade became OfficeMax after the Boise, Idaho-based forest products giant sold its forest and timberland assets for $3.7 billion to private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC. and acquired OfficeMax for $1.3 billion.
Boise Cascade had started the composite siding plant as a value-added recycling project - using recycled film plastics from products like shrink wrap, Bubble Wrap and grocery bags - and urban wood waste to make the siding.
Troubles getting the recycled siding project off the ground, combined with the OfficeMax acquisition, ultimately doomed the plant, said Andrew Bohutinsky, a Chicago-based senior vice president for equity firm Lincoln Partners LLC.
``My guess is they didn't see many positives to continuing those operations,'' Bohutinsky said. ``As OfficeMax, it wasn't core to their plan.''
OfficeMax will record a $41 million loss from the siding plant for fourth quarter of 2005, according to a corporate news release.
Saint-Gobain Calmar is on selling block
GRANDVIEW, MO. - Saint-Gobain Calmar Inc., a maker of sprayers and dispensers headquartered in Grandview, is for sale, according to its parent company, Cie. de Saint Gobain SA.
Jean-Louis Beffa, chairman and chief executive officer of the Paris-based parent, confirmed the possible sale during a Jan. 27 Webcast. He said that after buying British Plastic Board in December, Saint-Gobain is looking to sell nonstrategic businesses. Beffa listed Calmar as one of the possibilities.
``There's no hurry. We don't want to sell at any price - value is of the essence,'' Beffa said.
He said Saint-Gobain has received a few offers for Calmar and expects to get a good price for the unit. Beffa indicated that divestitures are possible in the next 18 months.
He said a sale is not required to fund the BPB acquisition, but said making a deal would give Saint- Gobain more flexibility.
Calmar opened a 140,000-square-foot facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico in May, replacing a manufacturing operation it had in City of Industry, Calif. It also moved its headquarters to Grandview.
Saint-Gobain bought Calmar in 1998.
Calmar was established in 1946 and makes products for the household-cleaning, personal-care, cosmetics and pharmaceutical customers.