Pelliconi & C. SpA is pushing deeper into both plastic closures and the North American market through a deal to buy assets once owned by Novembal.
With the deal, Ozzano dell'Emilia, Italy-based Pelliconi gains a total of 20 injection molding machines evenly split between production locations in Peoria, Ariz., and Rawdon, Quebec, said Pierluigi Garuti, CEO of the company's operations in North America.
Pelliconi has been operating a compression molding plastic closures facility in Orlando, Fla., since 2010 and has wanted to expand in the Americas for many years, Garuti said during a Jan. 25 interview over Microsoft Teams from the company's headquarters in Italy.
That opportunity arose after Novembal USA Inc., a unit of equipment maker Sidel Group, closed cap making operations in the United States and Canada in 2023, citing "changing business decisions."
Pelliconi purchased the assets of two facilities for undisclosed terms.
"It makes sense for us basically for two reasons. One reason is that we had the strategic goal to increase our footprint in the North America continent. And these two locations will definitely give us the opportunity to increase our presence in the Northeast and center west," Garuti said. "And adding Orlando ... should give us a good geographic coverage of North America."
Pelliconi also is adding injection molding technology to its compression molding approach in Orlando.
The deal "will give us the opportunity to expand our product portfolio into other types of closures" Garuti said. "This is enlarging our proposition. It is enlarging our ability to offer a wider range of products to our customers."
Pelliconi, which also has a network of metal closure facilities in Italy, China and Egypt, has historically served only the beverage industry through the Orlando site. Adding injection molding technology will help the company expand into other market segments, he said.
"We have been looking into opportunities for at least three, four years. We started before COVID. We were working through a couple of options, mainly one that didn't succeed because the expectation wasn't correct according to our judgment. That's why we kept searching," Garuti said. "It took a little bit of time to find the right move."
Just as the company has expanded the metal closures business over time as opportunities arose, he said he believes having an expanded business in North America will lead to further expansion opportunities there and elsewhere.
Pelliconi CEO Marco Checchi, in a statement, said the deal "represents an important step in our group's growth journey."
Employment will be 30 to 40 workers initially in Canada and 20 to 30 in Arizona. They will join about 60 people working for Pelliconi in Florida.
Production already has resumed in Canada and Garuti estimated the Arizona facility will begin again next month.
Some of the employees who previously worked for Novembal were hired as new staff at Pelliconi, but the CEO of the North America operations stressed that his company only purchased assets, not the company Novembal itself. That approach shields Pelliconi from any possible obligations associated with past operations, he said.
Novembal is a unit of Sidel Group, a maker of packaging equipment including PET blow molding machinery. Sidel, in turn, is part of Tetra Laval Group, which includes aseptic packaging maker Tetra Pak. Novembal's presence in Arizona started in 2017 with the opening of a new facility there.
But now Novembal's failure means opportunity for Pelliconi.
"We are getting stronger. We are getting a different speed in the plastics business. And, for sure, as we want to develop the opportunities with customers in North America or go to other fields of business in North America, we also see this as a good opportunity to probably also expand the production of plastic closures somewhere else in the world wherever we see an opportunity," Garuti said.