The supervisory board of Swiss packaging group SIG Holding (Neuhausen; www.sig.biz) has recommended that shareholders reject the CHF 370m (EUR 228m) per share takeover bid made by New Zealand-based Rank Group (Auckland) – see Plasteurope.com Web of 04.01.207 – which it regards as too low. The board has declined to recommend acceptance or rejection of the competing CHF 400 per share offer made by Romanshorn, the acquisition vehicle of the Norwegian Ferd group and CVC Capital Partners (www.cvc.com) for SIG competitor Elopak (Spikkestad / Norway; www.elopak.com).

While saying the CVC/Ferd bid is "at a realistic price level" for shareholders who want to cash out their investment and not participate in the "future value creation potential" as outlined in the SIG business plan of October 2006, it noted at the same time that there is still a risk EU competition authorities could turn thumbs down on the proposed deal.

Preliminary figures for 2006 meanwhile show SIG results in line with the company´s own forecast. Sales rose 12% against 2005 to EUR 1.35 bn, with EBIT up 42% at EUR 108m and net profit up 53% at EUR 66m. Net debt decreased by the same margin to EUR 30m from EUR 64m. The holding forecasts sales growth of 10% for 2008 and 2009, with this slowing to 8% in 2008-2014. SIG said the outlook for 2007 is "more moderate," due to the "long-forecasted partial substitution of cartons by PET bottles in the German juice segment."