Nampak, one of South Africa's leading food and beverage packaging providers, is to spend nearly €10 million to optimise capacity and productivity at its newly acquired production facilities in both South Africa and Europe.
According to a report in the South African publication Business Day, the investment will be implemented over the next two years and follows up the recent merger with former rival Malbak.
The exercise will cover both the activities of the former Nampak and Malbak groups in South Africa and their European operations and is expected to produce a number of consolidations between all the operations.
"With the successful conclusion of the merger, Nampak and Malbak have now had an early review of the opportunities for the enlarged Nampak in SA and Europe," the company said in a statement. "Restructuring and realignment costs of R100 million (€9.7m) have been identified by a detailed plan and are to be provided for as part of the fair value exercise and will be incurred over the next 18 to 24 months," it said.
The company explained that the focus of the investment would be on optimising capacity and technology at the various plants, plant rationalisation, information technology costs to bring the two companies' systems into line, and organisational restructuring costs.
"This expenditure will improve operational efficiencies and is aimed at enhancing quality and service to our customers," Nampak said.
Executive chairman Trevor Evans stated that the company had already successfully implemented a similar reorganisation when it bought British packaging company Plysu.
Evans further explained that the goal of the operation was to achieve savings that exceeded the R100 million investment.