As expected, Selenis (Portalegre / Portugal; www.selenis.com) has acquired Artenius Italia, the last remaining PET production company of La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.es), which is currently in liquidation – see Plasteurope.com of 13.05.2014.

The Control PET subsidiary of the Imatosgil Investimentos group of Portuguese entrepreneur Matos Gil, once a major shareholder of La Seda, paid EUR 1m for the assets. According to La Seda, Selenius will take on 30 employees of the Italian PET production facility and assume redundancy costs for another 75 workers.

The erstwhile PET giant, which became insolvent after launching an acquisition spree just as the market began to cool, had said previously that intake from the sale would go toward pay liabilities of the insolvent company. However, La Seda said the acquisition sum meant almost nothing in terms or reducing its high level of debt.

In other news, Spanish media reports say investors surrounding Cristian Lay (Badajoz / Spain; www.cristianlay.com) plan to pump EUR 10m into the La Seda plants at El Prat de Llobregat and Tarragona. The manufacturer of designer jewellery, watches and cosmetics, who in the recent past has bought up a number of unrelated units, acquired the facilities from the insolvent PET producer earlier this year for more than EUR 15m – see Plasteurope.com of 07.02.2014. Over the past three months, Lay is said to have focused on renegotiating contracts with ex-La Seda suppliers in an effort to reduce costs by 15%.

The sell-off of processing arm APPE is still on-going, with Spanish media reporting that a deal is imminent. By court ruling, the PET bottle production operation can only be sold off in one piece, including the operations in Morocco and Turkey – which are not officially insolvent. The identities of the potential buyers have not been disclosed. Earlier this year, Portuguese plastic packaging producer Logoplaste (Cascais; www.logoplaste.com) was considered to be a leading candidate – see Plasteurope.com of 10.01.2014.