FDBusiness.com

SAES Group, an Italy-baseed company, has signed an agreement to obtain a 70% stake in Metalvuoto, a Lombardy-based manufacturer of plastic films for food storage applications, with an engagement to widen its shareholding to 100% within the following two years.

SAES already cooperates with Metalvuoto in the testing of their functional polymer composites, it said, and the acquisition will allow it to compete in the intelligent packaging industry by developing active plastics that improve performance, and are characterised by their biocompatibility and low environmental impact.

The provisional value of the deal is approximately €6 million, to be paid in cash in three instalments: the first, amounting to €1.5 million, on the signing of the contract; a second, worth €2 million, when the deal closes; and the remaining €2.5 million within one month of completion.

The deal also provides the option for SAES Group to bring its purchase of the remaining 30% stake in Metalvuoto forward by as much as a year.

Massimo della Porta, president of the SAES Group, said: “I am very pleased with the acquisition of Metalvuoto, which will contribute to the group’s continued revenue growth, by developing innovative products for markets that broaden the scope of our activities. With this acquisition, we will utilise our knowhow in the active materials, nano and micro structures, as well as organic chemistry expertise developed for OLED displays.”

And Giovanni Ronchi, founder and CEO of Metalvuoto, added: “I am proud of the agreement reached with SAES, whose technologies are complementary to ours; the combination enables the development of high-performance polymer films, which will allow Metalvuoto to strengthen its leading position in the packaging market and enter into that of active packaging.”

The SAES Group is an advanced functional materials company that develops and produces specifically engineered solutions. SAES solutions is based on getter technology and has been around for over seventy years.