The US-based firm recently signed a €400m acquisition agreement to takeover Tegrant Corporations and its temperature-assurance food packaging brand ThermoSafe.
ThermoSafe is a major world provider of temperature-assured solutions, which are primarily used in temperature-sensitive food packaging sector.
Sonoco vice president of investor relations, Roger Schrum, told FoodProductionDaily.com that launching Tegrant’s temperature-sensitive food packaging brand ThermoSafe into the European market would create huge growth for the brand.
Great opportunities in Europe
He added that Sonoco hoped to develop the ThermoSafe brand in the European market, where the company believed it would “do nothing but grow over the next few years”.
Schrum said: “Through the acquisition we’re not planning to change anything we do. Instead we hope to enhance the capabilities that we can provide to our customers in Europe.”
“ThermoSafe is an offering that has great opportunities in Europe and we plan to develop it fully,” he added.
Sonoco had known Tegrant for a number of years, and was aware of its capabilities, Schrum said.
He added: “Tegrant has relatively small operations in food packaging, but we see that as one of the advantages of the acquisition. We intend to bring some of the operations, particularly in the areas of temperature assured food packaging, into some of our businesses in Europe.”
Regulatory review pending
Sonoco signed a €550m takeover agreement with Metalmark Capital this week to acquire Tegrant Corporations and its business units ThermoSafe and 2 other packaging brands: Alloyd Brands and Protexic Brands.
Schrum added: “Sonoco already has operations in Europe, and through the acquisition we hope to provide more packaging for the food industry on the continent.”
Via the takeover – which is subject to regulatory review but is expected to close in November – Sonoco hopes to achieve overall sales of around €3.6bn in 2012, a figure that includes Tegrant’s projected sales of €320m.
Sonoco chairman Harris E. DeLoach Jr said: “The addition of Tegrant and its family of businesses significantly advances Sonoco as a protective packaging solutions leader and greatly expands the products, services and capabilities we can offer our customers.”