Ampac expands packaging empire through acquisition
high-performance, flexible packaging materials for the food
industry, for an undisclosed amount.
"We are looking to grow our consumer packaging business both organically and through synergistic acquisitions," said John Baumann, chief executive officer and president, Ampac Packaging.
"We believe that Flexicon is an ideal strategic acquisition and will be an important cornerstone in helping Ampac achieve its long-term consumer packaging growth goals."
Certainly, the purchase comes on the heels of another Ampac packaging acquisition. In July 2004, Ampac announced it had acquired a controlling interest of Kapak, which specialises in a wide variety of flexible packaging structures, including preformed pouches, custom shapes, rollstock, spout fitments, resealing options and state-of-the-art rotogravure graphics.
Flexicon is also best known for its technologically advanced, custom-engineered structures, including adhesive laminations, Flexi-Free solventless laminations, heat-seal coated rollstock, pouches, perforated tear products and 10-colour, high resolution, flexographic printing. The acquisition is therefore seen by Ampac as a good opportunity to further cement the corporation's growing dominance in certain sectors of the film and converting business.
"Flexicon's expertise in laminations and its new flexographic printing capability will enable Ampac to deliver an even wider range of products and services to the markets we serve," said George Thomas, vice president of business development for Ampac and chief operating officer, Kapak.
Robert Biddle will continue as president of Flexicon, overseeing the company's sales and manufacturing operations.
Ampac clearly has ambitions to develop its packaging business. The firm recently cooperated with Dow to develop and produce high barrier coextruded films containing Saran resins, and multilayer films for retort packaging. This capital investment by Ampac will provide the largest extruded multilayer polyvinylidene chloride product line produced in North America.
In addition to the Kapak and Flexicon acquisitions, Ampac finalised the purchase of Longview Fibre's bag business assets in October 2004.
Ampac continues to produce a wide range of high-performance film structures for bags and food packaging ranging from simple monolayers to complex nine-layer coextruded barrier films. Manufacturing capabilities include blown film extrusion, graphic art production and plate making, customised ink blending, flexographic printing up to eight colours (four-colour process) and converting finished product.
Management together with equity backing by Key Principal Partners and Pouschine Cook Capital Management owns Ampac. It is a diversified flexible packaging company with seven operating sites in North America and Asia employing approximately 700 people globally.
