La Seda had been facing liquidity problems after the group made several significant acquisitions including that of Amcor PET Packaging Europe and then faced the dramatic rise and fall in crude oil prices and recession in 2008/2009.
Capital injection
But recently appointed manager of APPE Europe, Martin Hargreaves, said the injection of €300m into La Seda from new investors now heralds a much needed return to financial stability.
Hargreaves sees this as an opportunity for APPE Europe, which has seven plants in Europe, to achieve its strategic aim of becoming the premier plastic packaging company on the continent.
“The restructuring has given La Seda and APPE a great opportunity to refocus our outlook in several ways,” said Hargreaves.
New opportunities
Kinza Sutton, marketing manager at APPE Europe, told BeverageDaily.com that the new financial stability of the group will give Artenius the opportunity to grow and develop through investment in more specialist, value-added products.
For the wider La Seda group, Sutton said it would be moving away from basic resin and commodity based products to focus on plastic packaging, specialist resins and recycled PET.
“The last 20 months has been extremely challenging time for the business,” said Hargreaves. “However, with the restructuring of our parental group now complete, APPE is fully open for business.”
The 2009 turnover figure of Artenius PET Packaging Europe in 2009 was €440m and the La Seda group t/o figure was €863m (down from a t/o of €1.2 billion in 2008).