Packaging Company Sealed Air in Talks to Go Private

In March 2018, Hamburger Rieger GmbH will start the scheduled construction of its second paper machine at its Spremberg location. The new plant’s commissioning is scheduled for summer 2020. The planned product range includes white and brown corrugated base papers (testliner) based on 100% recycled paper. With a width of 7.80 metres, the machine will produce 500,000 tonnes of paper per year. For the preparation of white base materials an environmentally friendly deinking section will be installed. It combines innovative resource-conserving raw material processing and the paper machine's patented mode of operation.

Greif, Inc. announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to divest its 50% share in the Flexible Packaging joint venture, or "FPS" to Gulf Refined Packaging (GRP) for a total cash consideration of $123 million, subject to certain conditions and post-closing adjustments. Greif expects to use the proceeds for debt repayment. "While we have worked closely with our joint venture partner, each partner held different views of the appropriate path forward for the FPS business," said Pete Watson, Greif's President and Chief Executive Officer. "As a result, we entered into a process to determine a single owner and utilized our disciplined capital allocation framework that resulted in an agreement to sell our ownership stake to GRP for significant value. I would like to thank our FPS colleagues for their hard work over the last 11 years and for their continued commitment to the business during the transition ahead."

The Italian Loacker wafer in flexible packaging paper from Koehler Paper has been on the market for more than a year and a half. But the life cycle of this packaging does not end in waste paper after consumption. Thanks to its certified recyclability, the raw material can be used again and again: The wafer packaging is turned into high-quality recycled paper at Koehler Paper in Greiz. In this way, Koehler Paper is making an active contribution to conserving resources and setting an example of the circular economy in action within the Group. The starting point of the recycling trip is Kehl am Rhein, where Koehler Paper commissioned its most modern paper machine to date in 2019. Specially developed for the production of flexible packaging paper, packaging alternatives to plastic are created here. Compared to plastic, paper generally has a significantly lower carbon footprint. One of the reasons for this is that hardly any other material can be recycled so frequently. Even after several passes through the cycle, the quality of the secondary raw material is retained. From Kehl, the Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure MOB packaging paper is sent to the SIT Group in San Marino, Italy. Here it is further processed into a Doypack and then delivered to Loacker as environmentally friendly secondary packaging. Once the wafers have been consumed, the packaging paper is sent via a waste paper sorting system to a local recycled paper mill, for example to Koehler Paper in Greiz. The beginnings of paper production in Greiz date back to 1591. Today, Loacker packaging is given a second life here, as all paper produced in Greiz is made from 100 percent secondary fiber raw materials. Thanks to state-of-the-art dyeing technology, the former red Loacker packaging, for example, is turned into a deep black recycled paper that has been awarded the “Blue Angel” eco-label and the EU Ecolabel. But that's not all: the black recycled paper produced in Greiz is further processed by a converter and finally reaches the renowned watch manufacturer Mühle-Glashütte in Saxony. There it finds a new purpose as fine packaging for luxury watches.