Biggest acquisition in the history of the ALPLA company

Boxmore Packaging, with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, will become a fully owned subsidiary of the Austrian packaging specialist ALPLA

ALPLA, a leading provider of plastic packaging worldwide, has bought an African market leader in the form of Boxmore Packaging. The company, headquartered in Samrand, Johannesburg, specialises in PET pre-forms, PET bottles and closures, and currently employs around 1,000 members of staff at nine locations.

‘The African continent is an attractive growth market for us. With the purchase of Boxmore Packaging, we now also have a broad basis for entering the market in South Africa, in addition to our activities with ALPLA TABA in North Africa’, says ALPLA CEO Günther Lehner. ALPLA has acquired 100 % of Boxmore Packaging. All employees and locations are being taken on by ALPLA, although it has been decided that the management structure will remain the same. The current board, under the leadership of Len Engelbrecht (Boxmore CEO), will continue to manage the existing Boxmore business, and in addition, take on responsibility for the integration and management of the existing ALPLA SA business. For the foreseeable future the company will continue to operate under the existing name as a member of the ALPLA Group.

Leaders in South Africa

Founded in 1995, Boxmore Packaging is seen as the market leader for PET pre-forms and bottles (ISBM technology), as well as closures, in southern Africa. Its headquarters are located in the industrial zone of Samrand near the South African city of Johannesburg. Around 1,000 employees currently manufacture approximately 4 billion of the aforementioned products each year at nine production locations. The customers of Boxmore Packaging are situated in more than 20 African countries, as well as on the islands in the Indian Ocean.

‘Both the products and customer structure of Boxmore Packaging suit our corporate structure very well’, emphasised Christoph Riedlsperger, ALPLA’s Regional Director for Africa, Middle East and Turkey. The active customer base includes numerous international consumer goods companies and long-term customers of ALPLA, but also local customers previously unknown to ALPLA. ‘With this acquisition, the biggest in the history of the company, we are taking a significant step towards our targets on the African continent,’ says Günther Lehner.

Len Engelbrecht is delighted with this strategic partnership saying, “Our combined ambition to prioritise growth in Africa is a very exciting opportunity and one that we’ll be exploring through Boxmore’s current footprint, and existing relationships in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The takeover was signed on 5th of July 2017, implementation remains subject to the required legal and regulatory approval by the competition authorities. The contract parties have reached a confidentiality agreement regarding the financial details.