Business

Unions were meeting with Alcan chief executive Dick Evans in late July as Packaging News went to press, to discuss concerns over the future of the group’s packaging assets.

The meeting followed news that Rio Tinto plans to sell Alcan’s packaging sites if it succeeds with its £19bn ($38bn) bid for the group.

Nicholas Mockett, partner at Europa Partners, said Rio Tinto would be likely to sell the packaging assets to private equity so it could quickly pay off some of the debt incurred in the Alcan acquisition.