12 December 2006 – Europackaging, the Birmingham-based film and bag maker and distributor, has been sold to private equity firm MidOcean partners by owners the Alimohamed family.
With sales of some £200m, Europackaging is a leading supplier of both plastics and paper bags to many leading retail chains and operates South East Asia’s largest PE bag making factory in Malaysia.
No price for the deal with MidOcean has been divulged but the FT speculates that the figure is up to £190m, netting as much as £100m profit for the owning family, who will retain a stake in the business. Following the deal, Bill Ronald, former Mars managing director will become chairman of the packaging group.
MidOcean, a transatlantic private equity player already owns Bezier, a major point-of-sale and in-store marketing group which it bought from another venture capital firm Electra Partners for £77m in August 2005.
Europackaging made an early foray into PLA bags using product from NatureWorks, as PRW reported in an April 2004 profile of the company.
