A new leader for European aerosols

The Canmaker
June 2006

USC Europe, the company left out of the deal when Ball Corporation acquired US Can in the US earlier this year, is Impress Holdings, one of Europe’s leading canmakers.

The move could make Impress the largest manufacturer of aerosol cans in Europe.

Impress has entered into a definitive agreement with the owners of USC Europe, New York-based Berkshire Partners and the deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2006.

The operations to be purchased, which include the food can business of May Verpackungen and the aerosol can business of USC Europe, have a good fit with Impress, which makes cans for food, fish, aerosols and cans for decorative finishes in plants across Europe.

May has two plants in Germany and one in Denmark, while USC Europe is second only to Crown Holdings with five aerosol can plants in France (Laon), Germany (Erfstadt and Schwedt), Italy (Voghera), Spain (Reus) and the UK (Merthyr Tydfil). Impress currently runs three aerosol can plants in the Netherlands (Leeuwarden), Germany (Wedel) and Poland (Katy).

The combination of USC Europe and Impress’s aerosol can capacity is expected to match, if not exceed, Crown’s capacity of about 900 million three-piece welded aerosols a year produced at its five plants in the UK (Sutton-in- Ashfield), Italy (Spilamberto), France (Poitiers), Belgium (Antwerp) and the Netherlands (Mijdrecht). Last year Impress had sales of around 1.3 billion euros (US$1.6bn) with 6,500 employees in 43 plants and 17 countries worldwide. USC Europe last year had sales of 235 million euros (US$324m).

"This is a major strategic opportunity for Impress", said Francis Labbé, the company’s chief executive. It will reinforce our position and extend our geographical coverage in the growing market for aerosols and strengthen our ability to serve food can customers in northern Europe.

USC Europe was formed by US Can in 1997 following the merger of Crown Cork & Seal and CarnaudMetalbox. The European Commission required a large part of the merged business’s aerosol can operations to be sold to prevent the formation of a monopoly.

For further Information, please contact:

Impress:
T: +33 (0)243 485 100

Discover Impress on: www.impressgroup.com