Ball to sell US$3.42 bln of divestment assets to Ardagh

Colorado’s Ball Corporation announced last week that it and British-based American-owned Rexam PLC have come to terms with Luxembourg’s Ardagh Group over the sale of certain of Ball’s and Rexam’s assets in order to satisfy regulatory concerns involved in Ball’s purchase of Rexam. Ball and Rexam are among the largest makers of aluminium cans on Earth.

Under the agreement, Ball and Rexam will be selling US$3.42 billion worth of assets to Ardagh: eight Rexam plants in the United States, ten Ball plants and two Rexam plants in Europe, and two Ball plants in Brazil. Ardagh would also receive innovation and support functions in Brazil, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States. According to Ball, the assets Ardagh would be receiving had a combined revenue of US$3 billion in FY 2015.

Although the parties have agreed upon the terms of the sale, it still has regulatory hurdles to clear. It must also pass muster with the companies’ shareholders. Ball says that it plans to be able to conclude the deal in June of this year.

Founded in 1932 as the Irish Glass Bottle Company, Ardagh operates eighty-nine glass and metal manufacturing production facilities in twenty-one countries. The firm employed 19,000 workers and posted revenue of about US$5.8 billion last year.

Upon the completion of the sale in question, Ball would operate seventy-five metal beverage container manufacturing plants and joint ventures in Asia, Europe and North and South America. The company, which was founded in Buffalo, New York in 1880 as the Wooden Jacket Can Company, would be based in Broomfield, Colorado, a suburb of Denver.

Rexam Inc. was founded by William Vansittart Bowater in 1881 in London. The firm’s largest clients include PepsiCo, the Coca-Cola Company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Carlsberg Group, and Heineken. Rexam employs about 8,600 people and posted sales of US$5.71 billion in FY 2015.