Bemis, a food and beverage packager, will acquire 23 operations spread across the US, Canada, Mexico, South America and New Zealand that package and wrap such things as meats, cheese, bagged lettuce and snack foods. The business has annual sales of $1.5bn and 4,600 employees.
The deal should push its sales from $3.8bn to $5.3bn annually. Bemis will have 20,000 employees worldwide.
“People continue to eat so we aren’t as impacted by economy as the housing industry or the auto industry,” said Bemis CFO, Gene Wulf. “Food is a very stable market and we’re comfortable with this. This is not a bet-the-farm kind of deal.”
Rio Tinto acquired these packaging businesses as part of its 2007 purchase of Canadian aluminium giant Alcan for $38bn in cash. Since that deal, Rio Tinto has been under pressure to divest assets and raise money.
The deal is slated to close in early September.
The following is a Fox TV report.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Fox
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