(MENAFN Press) STAMFORD, Conn. - Friday, February 15th 2013 [ME NewsWire]
(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AGI-Shorewood Group (ASG), a leading global specialty-packaging manufacturer, today announced it has sold its gravure assets in the United States, Mexico and Asia to Amcor Limited, the world's largest packaging company.
"The sale ofselect gravure assets to Amcor is a strategic milestone that helps ASG focus our energy and investment on customers in our core North America and Europe specialty-packaging markets and on growing regions across Asia, Poland, and Latin America including Mexico," said Mike Ukropina, President and CEO of AGI-Shorewood Group. "ASG remains dedicated to the flawless supply of award-winning packaging to our customers in the consumer products and home entertainment segments."
"The acquisition strengthens our value proposition to customers in three critical areas," said Peter Konieczny, President, Amcor Tobacco Packaging. "Through the acquisition, we expand our presence in the emerging markets of Asia and Latin America, enhance our innovation capabilities, and welcome strong new talent into our organisation, all focused on meeting the needs of our global and regional customers."
While ASG will exit tobacco packaging and gravure printing in most of its regions globally, the company will continue to own and operate its Smiths Falls, Canada plant which provides innovative consumer gravure packaging like MagneteX - the world's first automated inline process for creating magnetized product packaging.
With this transaction complete, Ukropina said the company can now focus on serving its packaging customers in health and beauty, pharmaceutical, confectionery, home entertainment, consumer electronics, spirits, and sporting goods through its 19 plants and eight creative services centers worldwide. "We believe the intense focus of an organization - in terms of customer service, innovation, capital and operational excellence - is the pathway to great performance for our customers and ultimately for our shareholders," he said. "At the same time, Amcor gains a strong tobacco packaging business to enhance their global platform. We wish Amcor and our talented former employees great success, and we will work to ensure a smooth transition for customers and operations in the coming months."
Moving forward, ASG continues to operate manufacturing facilities on four continents - North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. In addition, ASG maintains creative services offices in the U.S., U.K., France, China and Australia, as well as plastic injection-molding plants in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Poland.
