Sun European Partners, the European advisor of US investment firm Sun Capital Partners (Boca Raton, Florida; www.suncappart.com) has further reorganised its portfolio of plastic packaging companies. It has established a pan-European flexible packaging specialist, Britton Group (Winsford, Cheshire / UK; www.brittongroup.com) and a pan-European rigid packaging specialist, Paccor (www.paccor.com), by combining existing affiliated portfolio companies.

The flexible packaging business, Britton Group, will comprise three existing affiliates of Sun European Partners: UK-based Britton Group (acquired in April 2011, see Plasteurope.com of 18.04.2011), which provides extrusion, printing, lamination, and conversion services; Reuther Verpackung, a Germany- and Poland-based supplier of printing, laminating and converting bags that serve as packaging for the pet food, confectionery and coffee/tea industries that was acquired in November 2010; and the flexible packaging division of Veriplast Solutions, the France-based provider of a variety of flexible packaging solutions including extrusion, printing, lamination and conversion acquired in 2006.

The combined businesses will create economies of scale with an annual turnover of around EUR 311m. Britton Group will have operations across four European countries: the UK, France, Germany and Poland.

The rigid packaging specialist Paccor will comprise two existing affiliates of Sun European Partners: Paccor, the Germany-based European rigid plastic consumer goods division of Huhtamaki (Espoo / Finland; www.huhtamaki.com), acquired in December 2010 and the rigid packaging division of Veriplast, which provides a variety of rigid packaging solutions for the food, beverage, health, home and personal care sectors.

The combined businesses have an annual turnover of around EUR 370m. The company will be based in Germany and will have operations across 10 European countries: Germany, Poland, France, UK, Spain, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Netherlands, Finland and Lithuania. Sun European Partners said the newly combined company will continue to expand with future rigid packaging acquisitions and has set aside EUR 1.75 bn for this purpose.