After recently having completed the carve-up of its rigid plastic businesses in Europe – see Plasteurope.com of 27.07.2010 – Finnish packaging group Huhtamaki (Espoo; www.huhtamaki.com) has reached an agreement with Island Lux Sarl & Partners SCA, part of US private investment firm Sun Capital Partners (Boca Raton, Florida; www.suncappart.com) to sell most of said units. The deal worth EUR 52m still has to meet the approval of the competition authorities.

The divested businesses include operations in Hämeenlinna / Finland, Auneau / France, Siemianowice / Poland, Istanbul / Turkey as well as sales offices in Germany and Lithuania. Some 1,100 workers will be affected by the takeover.

Huhtamaki’s European rigid plastic consumer goods operations last generated sales of EUR 160m, producing mostly dairy, edible fats, ready meal and ice-cream packaging. Last year, the Finnish company divested its rigid plastics businesses in South America (see Plasteurope.com of 10.06.2009), South Africa (see Plasteurope.com of 10.08.2009) and Australia (see Plasteurope.com of 18.11.2009). Huhtamaki CEO Jukka Moisio said the group was still reviewing its rigid plastics business in Italy.