The purchase of Allied Glass expands French glassmaker Verallia’s manufacturing footprint into the UK and strengthens its premium spirits packaging offer, particularly for Scotch whisky and gin.
France’s Verallia is buying UK-based glassmaker Allied Glass from an affiliate of Sun European Partners. Verallia will acquire 100% of Allied Glass in a £315m (€366.3m) cash transaction that is set to close mid-November.
Offering extra-white and bespoke colored glass and decoration capacity, Allied Glass is specialized in premium spirits packaging, with a strong position in the gin and Scotch whisky segments.
Based in Leeds, the glassmaker operates four furnaces and has a staff of 600. At its Leeds site, Allied Glass’ two furnaces feeding nine production lines have a combined capacity of 520 tons of flint glass per day. Its Knottingley facility has two furnaces serving seven production lines. One furnace produces white flint glass, while the other produces extra white flint glass and colored glass. They have combined capacity of 450 tons per day. Allied Glass has its own decoration facility for screenprinting, and works with partners to offer other decoration techniques.
The UK accounts for 95% of the glassmaker’s revenues, which totaled £138m (€160m) in fiscal 2021. Allied Glass’ sales are forecast to exceed £150m (€174.4m) in 2022.
“Our acquisition of Allied Glass is in line with our strategy of accelerating our investments in key markets while leveraging our industrial, technological and management expertise to generate synergies,” Verallia CEO Patrice Lucas said in a statement. “This is a great milestone too, as the Group will be present on the UK market.”
Verallia reported revenues of €2.7bn in 2021.
