Next Wave Partners is delighted to announce the acquisition of Petainer, the market leader in Germany for reusable PET bottles and in the Nordic region for PET beverage containers, from Rexam Plc for a consideration of £16 million.
Next Wave Partners acquires environmentally friendly packaging company
This acquisition will allow Petainer to expand into other growth markets, including other beverage sectors that are beginning to replace their current packaging with PET and geographically into Central and Eastern Europe.
Headquartered in Lidköping Sweden, with a second plant in Aš, Czech Republic and a sales office in Germany, Petainer was formerly part of Rexam Plc, a global consumer packaging company. Petainer manufactures and supplies polyethylene terephalate (“PET”) bottles, preforms[1] and kegs to a range of global drinks companies.
Petainer is now wholly owned by Next Wave Partners, a growth capital investor, WHEB Ventures and a combination of the current management team led by Per-Olof Wallin, Managing Director, and two new directors, Nigel Pritchard, Group CEO, and Brian Woods, Group COO.
Stephen Walls, Partner at Next Wave Partners said: “We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Petainer. The business is cash generative, has existing long term relationships with blue chip customers and comes to us with a very strong and experienced management team.”
James McNaught-Davis, Managing Partner at WHEB Ventures said: “Petainer’s unique products reduce the environmental impact normally associated with drinks packaging. Businesses faced with the increasing challenge of meeting their carbon reduction commitments have found Petainer’s products provide the solution for meeting packaging volume reduction plans.”
Per-Olof Wallin, Managing Director of Petainer, Sweden said: “Petainer’s latest technology, the PET beer keg was launched in September 2009 and aims to replace the traditional metal keg. The PET keg significantly reduces the environmental impact of keg distribution. It is substantially lighter compared to its metal counterpart, requires less energy in its manufacture and is recyclable, therefore removing the need for it to be returned. It also provides significant savings to breweries in the total cost of draught beer distribution and removes the working capital burden of running a large fleet of metal kegs. Trial customers include both high-end specialist breweries and large beer multinationals.”
Nigel Pritchard, Petainer’s new Group CEO said: “This acquisition is a very exciting opportunity to build on the Company’s reputation for operational and service excellence. Our future growth strategy is based on investing in innovation and new product and service development and in providing the continuous development and excellence that our customers have come to expect.”
The global market for consumer packaging is estimated at $450 billion. Of this, 70% is for food and beverage applications and 40% of this comprises plastic packaging.
Market estimates predict that the global demand for PET packaging will grow by 40% by 2015 from 2009 figures.
Advisers:
Legal adviser: Macfarlanes, Howard Corney
Corporate finance adviser: Blackwood Capital Group, Thomas Kardos
Due diligence adviser: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andrew McCrosson
[1] Preforms are injection moulded PET “test-tubes” which can be blown into bottles on customers sites in integrated blowing and filling lines.
