Polimoon ASA has scooped up Rexam plc's two remaining thin-wall plastic food container plants in Scandinavia for 80 million Danish kroner ($13.7 million).
Oslo, Norway-based Polimoon will take over the dairy packaging and food-service vending cup facilities in Lidköping, Sweden, and Stilling, Denmark, employing around 360.
The two thermoforming businesses have combined annual sales of DKr450 million ($77 million).
Rexam, a top worldwide consumer packaging producer, continues to clear out its noncore operations. It also is seeking a buyer for its Petainer refillable PET bottle business, also based in Lidköping, with a second plant in Skandinaviska, the Czech Republic. Petainer recorded annual sales of £34 million ($62 million) in 2005.
Petainer, a European pioneer of refillable PET carbonated soft drink bottles, also serves the mineral water, beer and fruit drink markets. In 2001, Petainer started making refillable polyethylene naphthalate beer bottles.
``[Petainer] has a minor position in the overall plastic bottle market and [Rexam] believes that it would be better to focus resources on segments that more closely fit its global strategy,'' Rexam said in a news release. Petainer mainly serves the German and Scandinavian markets.
Polimoon plans to improve productivity and expand product development at the thin-wall container plants, which Rexam said broke even last year.
``Polimoon sees good opportunities to improve performance going forward, especially at one of the plants where profitability is poor,'' the company said. It plans to use its European distribution network to increase sales for the Scandinavian businesses.
Rexam, headquartered in London, plans to focus on value-added products in food packaging, in particular, high-barrier plastic containers. It already is a leading supplier of high-barrier plastic containers in North America - it claims a market share in the United States of more than 50 percent.
Rexam intends to grow its European high-barrier sales through its regional center in Deeside, Wales.
In September, Rexam sold another thin-wall plastic packaging plant, a modified-atmosphere tray unit in Yate, England, to thermoformer Sharp Interpack Ltd. of Bridgwater, England.
Polimoon already runs two food-packaging thermoforming plants in Scandinavia - both in Norway.