Local plants both Ardagh

The former Anchor Glass Container plant in Winchester is not among those being sold by Ardagh Group to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission and complete the acquisition of Verallia North America.
As a result, both the Winchester plant and the Dunkirk Verallia plant, which have long been competitors, are now under the same ownership.
Ardagh acquired Anchor Glass Container Corporation in 2012, but when it reached an agreement in January 2013 to acquire Verallia North America from Saint-Gobain the FTC balked, citing anti-trust concerns.
Had the Verallia sale gone through as originally proposed, just two companies — Ardagh Group and Owens-Illinois Inc. — would have controlled 85 percent of the glass container market for brewers and 77 percent of the market for distillers in the U.S., according to the FTC.
To address those concerns, Ardagh Group announced this week it would sell the former Anchor corporate headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and six former Anchor plants to KPS Capital Partners LP.
That move satisfied the FTC, which issued a consent order allowing the $1.7 billion Verallia deal to be completed.
But Ardagh’s announcement did not identify which plants were involved, and KPS Capital Partners characterized the deal as the acquisition of Anchor Glass rather than specific plants.
Only in later reports from the FTC were the six identified as Lawrenceburg, Ind.; Elmira, New York; Jacksonville, Fla.; Warner Robins, Ga.; Henryetta, Okla.; and Shakopee, Minn.
The pricetag on the KPS purchase of Anchor was not revealed by either party, but The Irish Times reported this week, “The deal is understood to be worth just under $500 million, broadly in line with industry norms.”
The resulting new version of Anchor Glass will be the third-largest glass bottle manufacturer in the U.S.
That, the FTC said in announcing its consent order, “fully replaces the competition that would have been lost in both the beer and spirits glass container markets had the merger proceeded unchallenged.”
The new Ardagh North America Glass Division is expected to generate annual revenues of about $2 billion from 16 glass-manufacturing plants, including the Dunkirk and Winchester facilities. The division will employ about 5,000 people.
Ardagh was founded in Dublin, Ireland, in 1932 as the Irish Glass Bottle Company. Today, it is based in Luxeumbourg. It is led by Paul Coulson, who owns 36 percent of the company.
Coulson graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1973. He worked as an accountant for Price Waterhouse Coopers before founding his own firm, Bates Coulson and Co. He later moved into the international leasing business.
In 1998, he acquired a stake in Ardagh, which at that time had a single glass container plant in Dublin. It is now one of the world’s largest suppliers for food and beverage packaging.
Internationally, Ardagh Group operates more than 100 locations in 24 countries, employing 20,000 people and generating global sales of $6.5 billion.[[In-content Ad]]