Packaging giant Bemis Co. Inc. has purchased liner maker Shield Pack LLC for an undisclosed price.
Shield Pack is based in West Monroe, La., where it employs 100 at a 75,000-square-foot plant making high-barrier liners for bulk container packaging. The firm has annual sales of about $25 million.
Neenah, Wis.-based Bemis is buying Shield Pack from its CEO, George Smith, and from financial firms Tuckerman Capital of Hanover, N.H., and Pegasus Capital Group of Los Angeles.
Shield Pack was founded in 1968 and claims to have created the market for liners for dry-application bulk packaging.
Bemis President and CEO Henry Thiesen said in a Dec. 1 news release that buying Shield Pack “expands [Bemis'] reach into new market applications that require barrier packaging.”
Bemis spokeswoman Kristine Pavletich said the two firms had not been competitors. Shield Pack buys film and film laminates based on nylon, ethylene vinyl alcohol and similar materials and then converts those products into pouches and liners, Pavletich said. Shield Pack's Smith said in a separate news release that the sale “allows Bemis to continue and grow a 43-year, long-standing market-leadership position. … Bemis also secures a strong and rapidly growing position in liquid bulk liners.”
Shield Pack's owners were advised on the transaction by Blaige & Co. of Chicago. Chairman and CEO Thomas Blaige said the deal “brings resources to Shield Pack's expansion initiatives, and provides Bemis with diversification … into intermediate bulk packaging contracts.”
The acquisition is the second of the year for Bemis, a publicly held firm with sales of $4.8 billion in 2010. In August, the firm acquired Hong Kong-based flexible packaging maker Mayor Packaging Enterprises Ltd. In October, Bemis' Curwood Inc. unit said it would close its tape plant in Oshkosh, Wis., eliminating 23 jobs.
Bemis ranked as North America's largest film and sheet maker in a recent Plastics News ranking, with related sales estimated at $3.3 billion. The firm employs more than 20,000 worldwide.
