Amcor acquires Alcoa’s South American PET business

Amcor Ltd. has announced it is buying Alcoa’s South American PET packaging unit for $75 million. Amcor will acquire Alcoa’s nine production facilities in Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Uruguay and Chile, which generated sales of about $130 million last year. Production volume of the plants is about 1.7 billion units, with 75% being preform business, and the remainder taken up by stretch, blow-molded bottles. The deal is scheduled to close sometime in the third quarter.
With 13 PET bottle plants in South America already, Amcor says it views the acquisition as an opportunity to improve efficiencies and service to customers in the carbonated soft drink and bottled water industries. In five locations where PET assets are co-located with Alcoa closure facilities, Amcor says it will relocate those assets and existing employees to Amcor PET operations. Savings from plant closures and improved operating efficiencies are expected to exceed $5 million after three years. Amcor’s existing Latin American operations have sales of $390 million, with an average annual compounded growth of more than 20%.