Finnish packaging manufacturer Huhtamaki (Espoo / Finland; www.huhtamaki.com) has announced the complete takeover of Laminor, a Brazil-based producer of laminate tubes that was set up in 2002 as a 50:50 joint venture with packaging group Bemis (now part of Amcor – see Plasteurope.com of 13.02.2019). The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in Q1 2020. Laminor generated net sales of around EUR 25m in 2018.

Shortly before this, the Finnish company completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Everest Flexibles (Verulam / South Africa), a privately owned manufacturer of flexible packaging as well as laminates. The plans were announced in autumn last year (see Plasteurope.com Web of 10.10.2019). Huhtamaki said it paid EUR 58m for the business with 400 employees and annual sales of around EUR 40m. Everest’s financial results will be reported as part of its new owner’s Flexible Packaging segment retroactive to 1 December 2019.

Concurrently, Everest has formed a joint venture with Huhtamaki’s Flexible Packaging, Foodservice and Fiber Packaging operations in South Africa, so that the unnamed sellers of the South African company now own 30% of all Huhtamaki’s activities in that country. The Finnish packaging maker said the JV structure is designed to improve its “Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment” (B-BBE) rating and subsequently its competitiveness in South Africa.

In other news, Huhtamaki has appointed two new members to its global executive team, with effect from 1 January 2020. Marina Madanat has been named executive vice president, Strategy and Business Development. Since June 2018, she had worked as VP, Strategy. Antti Valtokari, who joined Huhtamaki in August 2018 as chief information officer, has taken on the role of executive VP, IT and Process Performance.