| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaperlinX buys European foothold
By CNN's Geoff Hiscock, Asia Business Editor
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australian paper giant PaperlinX is to pay 746 million euros ($880 million) for the paper sales division of Netherlands-based Buhrmann NV. The deal, announced in Australia on Wednesday, will lift PaperlinX's annual sales to more than Aust. $9 billion ($6 billion), making it the world's third-largest paper merchant. Buhrmann said in a statement in Amsterdam that the expected sale, which is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, would allow it to cut debt, which it described as a "top priority" for 2003. PaperlinX managing director Ian Wightwick said the acquisition would boost earnings per share by 40 percent within three years and would create the first fine paper merchant with operations in Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America. It is the fourth big acquisition for PaperlinX since being spun out of packaging company Amcor in April 2000. In June 2002 PaperlinX spent $207 million to buy Bunzl Fine Paper in the UK and Ireland, and in 2001 and 2002 bought two Canadian companies, Coast Paper and Papier Turgeon. Wightwick said Buhrmann was the leading European paper merchant with annual sales of about 3 billion euros (about $3.5 billion) across 22 countries. He said that when the transaction is completed -- expected at the end of August -- about half of the company's pre-tax earnings would come from outside Australia. Paper sales will rise to 4 million tonnes a year, making PaperlinX the No. 3 fine paper merchant in the world behind Xpedx and Unisource of the United States. PaperlinX will fund 75 percent of the deal from debt and 25 percent from an issue of new shares. PaperlinX shares are in a trading halt while an institutional placement is undertaken. The shares closed Tuesday at A$4.78 and are down about 6 percent for the year so far, after hitting a one-year high of A$5.38 on February 21. PaperlinX's former parent Amcor has been on its own acquisition trail recently. On June 3 it said it would spend $75 million to buy Alcoa's Latin American plastic bottle packaging business. Following a $1.6 billion purchase of a European packaging and bottling business in 2002, Amcor has become the world leader in the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic container business.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
