Tuna Can Maker Impress Taken Over By Ardagh Glassff

Source: Impress Press Release

Ardagh Glass Group, of the United Kingdom, announced this week that it had entered into an agreement with Impress’ majority shareholder - Doughty Hanson - to acquire all the shares of Impress Coöperatieve U.A. for 1.7 billion Euros. Impress, as an empty can manufacturer, is a major player in the global canned tuna industry.

Once the acquisition is completed, the enlarged business will trade as “Ardagh Packaging Group” and will have annual revenues of more than 3 billion Euros. The acquisition is still conditional on European Union and United States competition authority approvals.

Impress is a global metal packaging company with annual revenues of 1.8 billion Euros, operating 57 facilities in 22 countries across five continents and employing 7.500 people. It is a major player in the European, North American and Australasian markets. Impress is the number two can manufacturer in Europe as well as the world’s biggest seafood can-maker. It manufactures cans for household names such as John West, Del Monte, Crown Paints and Proctor & Gamble.

Ardagh Glass is the largest glass manufacturer in the UK and currently the third largest glass packaging manufacturer in Europe with revenues of 1.2 billion Euros, operating 24 facilities in seven countries. It employs 6.500 people and provides glass packaging solutions to the food and beverage industry.

Ardagh’s Chairman, Paul Coulson, said: “This is a transformational deal for Ardagh providing us with global reach and scale. The acquisition of Impress will enable Ardagh to become a major force in world packaging.”

Also commenting, Niall Wall, Ardagh’s CEO, said: “The newly enlarged group will operate 81 facilities with leading market positions across 24 countries. The new business will have considerable scale with sales in excess of 3 billion Euros and employing 14,000 people.”