The sale of Rosti Technical Plastics to Stella Plastic Holding, part of the Nordstjernan investment group in Sweden, has been completed with the injection molder's U.S. facilities left out of the deal.
Closing of the agreement took place on March 9 after approvals were granted by competition authorities.
The outcome means Rosti A/S, part of the AP Moller-Maersk Group, will continue to operate five factories — three injection molding factories in the United States and two PET bottle factories in Europe.
The merged Stella/RTP group, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, will be named Rosti Technical Plastics, and its CEO will be Börje Vernet, presently CEO of Stella. The merged company will have annual sales of approximately 175 million euros ($240 million) and around 1,800 employees.
Vernet said: “We look forward to continuing the development of the companies in the new Rosti Technical Plastics group and to serve the customers in the best possible way. I am convinced that Stella and RTP will make a strong partnership; both groups have coped very well with the economic downturn during 2009.”
Vernet explained why Nordstjernan decided not to acquire the Rosti U.S. operations.
“This decision was difficult,” he said. “We feel, however, that a strategy of focusing our resources and managerial efforts on Rosti's European and Asian operations will enable us to provide our customers the greatest benefit and value.”
Stig Hoffmeyer, senior vice president of AP Moller-Maersk, said: “All of the 10 Rosti factories, including the five factories sold to Nordstjernan, showed a very strong performance in 2009.
“Despite a 20 percent drop in group sales due to market recession, [earnings before interest and taxes] more than doubled and order intake of new projects for the future was record high,” Hoffmeyer said.
During 2009, RTP had sales of 115 million euros ($157.7 million) from its plants in China, India, the Netherlands, Poland and Scotland.
Stella had sales of 45 million euros ($61.7 million) from its plants in Germany and Sweden.
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