Sonoco Closes Acquisition Of Weidenhammer - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Diversified packaging company Sonoco (SON) Friday completed the acquisition of Weidenhammer Packaging Group for €286 million, or about $360 million, in cash. Weidenhammer is a European provider of composite cans along with composite drums and rigid plastic containers.

According to Sonoco, the merger creates a global leader in rigid paper packaging and is expected to increase Sonoco's combined global consumer-related packaging and services business to about $2.8 billion in annual sales or approximately 53 percent of the company's combined revenue of about $5.4 billion. In addition, the combination is expected to increase Sonoco's net sales in Europe to about 21 percent of total sales.

Headquartered in Hockenheim, Germany, Weidenhammer has about 1,100 employees and operates 13 production facilities, including five in Germany, along with individual plants in Belgium, France, Greece, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Chile and Russia.

In addition to producing composite cans, drums and luxury tubes, WPG produces unique rigid plastic containers using state-of-the-art thin-walled injection molding technology with modern in-mold labeling.

To finance the transaction, Sonoco entered into a new $600 million bank credit facility earlier in October.

As previously reported, the acquisition of Weidenhammer is expected to have no material impact to Sonoco's fourth quarter 2014 base earnings and should be accretive to the company's 2015 base earnings in the range of $.09 to $.14 per share, including adjustments for purchase accounting.