United Kingdom-based packaging and recycling firm DS Smith Plc has announced plans to acquire Duropack from CP Group 2 BV, a subsidiary of the private equity firm One Equity Partners, for about €300 million ($340 million).
Austria-based Duropack is a recycled corrugated board packaging business with a presence throughout Southeastern Europe. Duropack’s operations include 14 corrugated packaging sites, 2 paper mills and 18 recycling facilities. The company has locations in Austria, Hungary, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia. Duropack reportedly produces around 565,000 metric tons of corrugated packaging, slightly more than 200,000 metric tons of testliner and collects 160,000 metric tons of recovered fiber each year.
DS Smith says the acquisition is highly complementary to its geographic footprint and will transform the company’s position in the higher-growth Southeast Europe region, while strengthening DS Smith’s Europe-wide capabilities to its existing customer base.
DS Smith says Duropack has significant market share in many of the countries in which it operates and, combined with DS Smith’s existing operations in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, will have a leading position throughout Southeastern Europe.
“Duropack is an excellent business and a highly complementary fit,” says Miles Roberts, DS Smith’s CEO. “It is a further important step in our strategy to leverage our scale and strengthen our geographic footprint. Duropack has high quality assets with market leading positions. We look forward to it contributing to the overall growth of DS Smith in attractive markets where we were previously under-represented.”