Sonoco Completes Purchase of Phoenix Packaging

Published: November 02, 2001, By PRESS RELEASE

HARTSVILLE, SC, USA—Sonoco reports it has finished the previously announced purchase of Phoenix Packaging Corp., a privately held co. headquartered in North Canton, OH. Completed in mid-September, the all-cash deal's amount was not disclosed.

According to Sonoco, Phoenix reported 2000 sales at approximately $70 million (US), with a 2001 sales estimate at approximately $80 million. Sonoco says Phoenix, with approximately 190 employees in two facilities in the Canton area, is the leading mfr. of steel, easy-open closures in North America. Sonoco says the closures can serve as closing devices for metal, plastic, and composite containers.

"Only about one-third of the total domestic food-can market has been converted to easy-open closures, with potential conversions remaining in such products as soups, seafood, and vegetables," says Sonoco president/CEO Harris E. DeLoach, Jr. "Sales of easy-open closures have grown at a compound annual rate of 9 percent since 1999. [This] growth is being driven mainly by the increasing ready-to-serve food segment and consumer desire for convenience," he adds.

Sonoco's global metal and plastic easy-open-closures business (part of the co.'s consumer packaging segment) had year 2000 external sales of approximately $25 million (US) and approximately $165 million of internal sales to the manufacturer's composite can operations, says the co. "We believe this additional capacity and accompanying technology in the 'high-end' specialty closures market will enhance our ability to meet evolving closure needs for rigid containers, thus deepening our growing capability to provide global packaging supply-chain solutions for current and potential customers," DeLoach reports.

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