The family owners of Portuguese plastics packaging firm Logoplaste are studying ways to finance its expansion, founder and Chief Executive Filipe de Botton told Reuters on Tuesday.

Five sources told Reuters that Logoplaste's owners have tapped Credit Suisse to explore options including a possible sale of the business, which has been valued by private equity suitors at around 650 million euros ($730 million), although de Botton said no sale was planned.

Logoplaste's product list includes bottles for the Lucozade and Jose Cuervo drinks brands, and for detergent Fairy liquid.

A handful of private equity funds have already submitted preliminary bids for the company, the sources said. Advent, CVC , PAI, Carlyle and Canada's Onex are all interested, one added, cautioning that no deal was certain.

Credit Suisse and Advent declined to comment. Carlyle, CVC, Onex and PAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Logoplaste is owned by the de Botton family. Filipe de Botton is a former banker and keen offroad vehicle racer who founded the company in 1976 with his father. The company manufactures rigid plastic packaging for companies, managing over 59 factories in 17 countries.

Packaging businesses are viewed as attractive investments by funds as they are seen having reliable cash flows being more immune to economic cycles than other sectors, since they are mostly driven by the food, drink and personal care industries.

"STUDYING OPTIONS"

De Botton said that Logoplaste's annual turnover was around 650 million euros and should rise above 1 billion euros in the next three or four years, but would not confirm or deny the valuation estimate provided by the sources.

"We have major expansion projects to double the size of the company in terms of turnover in the next few years. We do plan to stay in charge and in control. We are not going to list the company either. While I am shareholder it will not be listed as it can be quite expensive," de Botton said.

"What we are studying is several ways of financing our expansion and one of them is via high-yield bonds that could be offered to private equity firms. But that is just one possible option. We are also talking to our banks for direct loans and studying other options, but no sale of the company."

Logoplaste operates a "through the wall" concept, whereby it reduces costs by having its factories bottle the products next door to or within the sites where they were made, rather than transporting them to factories elsewhere.

Last year containers and packaging deals totalled $24.9 billion globally, according to Thomson Reuters data. One of the larger transactions saw Onex snap up Swiss packaging company SIG Combibloc Group for 3.75 billion euros.

 

Source : uk.reuters.com

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