By Kate Tilley
CORRESPONDENT
Published: November 27, 2013 2:05 pm ET
Updated: November 27, 2013 2:07 pm ET
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — Australian packaging company Pact Group Holdings Ltd. today lodged a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for an initial public offering.
The offer is expected to raise about A$649 million. It opens Dec. 5 and closes Dec. 13.
Shares are expected to start trading on Australian Securities Exchange on Dec. 17.
Melbourne-based Pact Group manufactures a wide range of packing products at plants in Australia, New Zealand, China, the Philippines and Thailand.
It has 39 manufacturing plants across Australia, 18 in New Zealand, and five in China, the Philippines and Thailand. There are 2,200 employees in Australia, 900 in New Zealand and 400 in Asia.
Geminder Holdings, an entity controlled by non-executive chairman Raphael Geminder, who founded the company in 2002, will remain a key shareholder in Pact, retaining a 40 percent shareholding. In 2002, Pact had 15 manufacturing plants and A$223 million in annual sales.
Pact serves the food, dairy, beverage, personal care, other household consumables, chemical, agricultural, industrial and other sectors. Its manufacturing operations primarily involve plastic molding, including blow molding, injection and compression molding and automated assembly processes of plastic packaging and components.
“Pact is the largest [domestic] supplier of rigid plastics packaging, the fastest growing segment of the global packaging market,” Geminder said. “We have a market leading position in Australia and New Zealand and an emerging position in Asia’s fast-growing packaging market.”
The prospectus said key risks for potential investors include increased competition, changes to consumer preferences, product liability claims and possible recalls, and changes to key customers. It said Pact’s top 20 customers accounted for about 42 percent of sales in the year that ended June 30.
The prospectus said Pact had made 34 acquisitions since its 2002 launch.
It entered the Asian market in 2007 by establishing a plastic consumer packaging operation in the Philippines. Since then, it has grown its presence in the region through establishing a Singapore procurement office in 2008, a plastic closures manufacturing plant in Thailand in 2008, and acquiring three rigid plastics packaging manufacturing plants in China in 2012. | 
