Guala set for 230m management buyout

DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, the private equity arm of Credit Suisse, has set up a new company, GCL Holdings, with Intesa for the purchase.

Intesa will take a 20% stake in Luxembourg-based GCL Holdings.

GCL Holdings will offer €4.30 for each Guala share.

Guala chief executive Marco Giovannini, who has a 12% holding in Guala, chief financial officer Anibal Diaz, and other managers, will invest in GCL Holdings. They will have a 10-15% shareholding and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners the remaining 65-70%.

A spokesman said if the buyout was successful, Guala would be delisted to enable it to “carry out significant technology investments and large acquisitions”.

Guala Closures makes aluminium, PET and safety closures. It has 21 factories in 15 countries, including two in the UK at Kirkintilloch, Glasgow and at West Bromwich in the West Midlands. More than 2,000 people work in its closures and PET divisions.

The firm’s revenue for the first quarter to 31 March 2008 was €74.5m, up 4%, mainly driven by growth in Asia and in safety closures across China, India and the Far East. Gross operating profit was €13m.

The continuing conversion from cork to aluminium has also been driving growth in wine bottle tops.

Giovanni said in May that the firm’s organic growth continued to be “significant, reliable and consistent” and allowed it to look “with optimism” at the rest of the year, in spite of facing rising raw material and energy costs, currency devaluations and “supply chain inefficiencies”.

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