Klöckner Pentaplast (HQ: D-56401 Montabaur; www.kpfilms.com), European and North American market leader for rigid films, is to be sold to venture capital company Cinven (GB London; www.cinven.com) for EUR 925m in a combination of equity and debt. Seller is the WCM group (D-60313 Frankfurt; www.wcm.de), which holds 82% of the equity of the film producer´s parent, Klöckner-Werke (D-47057 Duisburg; www.kloecknerwerke.de).

The sale, which is subject to approval by cartel authorities, the supervisory board of Klöckner-Werke and that company´s annual general meeting, comes despite earlier assurances that the Klöckner group would be kept intact and focus on plastic films manufacture. There was even talk of expanding this business through acquisition before the old managing board resigned. In April of this year, the packaging business, Pentapack, was sold to the Dutch Budelpack International NV (NL-4693 Poortvilet; www.budelpack.com). Takeover bids for Pentaplast were invited in August.

With activities in a number of sectors, Cinven is one of Europe´s leading private equity firm. Its shareholdings in individual companies start as low EUR 100m, but the preferred size is well over EUR 500m. Over the past 10 years the firm has been involved in some 80 transactions worth more than EUR 15 bn. Deals with ties to the plastics sector include Dynacast, Franz Bonhomme and McKechnie along with the former ICI arm Avecia.

WCM reported sales of EUR 870m for Klöckner Pentaplast in financial year 2000-01 (30 September). Operating profit for the first nine months of the current financial year was disclosed as EUR 112m, on a par with the previous year. Some news reports suggest that management of Pentaplast, which specialises in PVC, PP and PET films, may be involved in a buyout over the next several months. The company has 14 plants in Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, the US and Argentina.