Atlas Development & Support Services has agreed to acquire East Africa Packaging for an undisclosed amount, as part of the first project within its newly established industrial division.

The company's new industrial division will focus on consumer based industrial projects in a bid to expand its business offering.

Based in Ethiopia, East Africa Packaging has been set up to build a new glass bottle manufacturing facility 45km north of Addis Ababa.

The Chancho Project will see the construction of the bottles facility that will cost around $42m, which will be funded on a staged basis by a mixture of debt from local development banks, other debt providers, industrial partners and equity.

Atlas will commission the facility in 2018, with plans to bring into full production in early 2019.

The plant will be capable of producing close to 105 million 330ml bottles annually. It will cater to the increasing consumer demand for locally produced glass bottles in the country which is being driven by increasing beer production.

East Africa Packaging is currently in the feasibility stages of the project by injecting around $4m.

Ethiopia has been attracting investments from international beverage companies for the past five years, with over $500m invested to date.

Atlas Development CEO Carl Esprey said: "The creation of a new industrial division will increase the breadth and sustainability of our business and leverage our current position in Ethiopia to drive additional activity and future earnings.

"The acquisition of East Africa Packaging is contingent on gaining approval to raise the headroom, so we encourage shareholders to support these resolutions so that we can move forwards at pace to implement our vision to develop and broaden our business offering.

"I would, however, like to note that aside from these developments, we continue to hold cash to support the activities of our established support services division."

 

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