CCL Industries Announces $44M Acquisition in Flexible Pouches

Specialty label, security, and packaging solutions provider CCL Industries has signed a binding agreement to acquire Pouch Partners s.r.l. from Pouch Partners AG, Switzerland, a flexible pouch converter owned by Swiss-headquartered Capri-Sun Group.

CCL Industries already employs approximately 25,300 people operating 205 production facilities in 43 countries with corporate offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, and Toronto, Canada. The company says CCL is the world's largest converter of pressure sensitive and specialty extruded film materials for a wide range of decorative, instructional, functional and security applications for government institutions and large global customers in the consumer packaging, healthcare and chemicals, consumer electronic device, and automotive markets.

Pouch Partners s.r.l. supplies highly specialized, gravure printed and laminated, flexible film materials for pouch forming, including recyclable solutions, with 2022 sales of $104 million and adjusted EBITDA of $6.8 million. The debt-free, all cash purchase consideration is $44 million, subject to customary adjustments at closing, scheduled for the 2023 third quarter. The new business will then trade as CCL Specialty Pouches.

Guenther Birkner, president of CCL Label Food & Beverage, comments, "Pouches are a packaging format we've looked at for a long time as an adjacency to our label and sleeve decorating technologies with a similar modus operandi. Our common customers see them as an interesting alternative to rigid containers with labels. Pouch Partners has highly focused, deep know-how for these materials, a solid foundation to enter this market."

Geoffrey T. Martin, president and CEO of CCL Industries Inc., adds, "There are also opportunities to sell this technology in the Home & Personal Care space and interesting potential to design new, sustainable, barrier films at Innovia. If our investment is successful in Europe, there could be interest to develop the product line globally, alongside our decorative label portfolio."