Bemis Co Inc, the largest maker of flexible packaging in the Americas, may bid for Alcan Inc's packaging business, worth about 4.4 billion US dollars, Macquarie Equities said Monday in a research note.The brokerage house said private equity players might also be interested in Alcan's packaging business, but that Australia's Amcor Ltd was unlikely to make an offer.
Macquarie Equities said Alcan was a major competitor of Amcor in flexible and tobacco packaging, meaning an attempt by the Australian company to take over Alcan's packaging business could attract the attention of the competition regulators.
Rio Tinto Ltd announced last that it intended to sell the packaging business after its 38.1 billion-US-dollar merger with Alcan.
Macquarie said Bemis had only has a small presence in Europe, where Alcan had 20 percent of the market for flexible packaging and Amcor 15 percent.
It said Alcan's flexible packaging business would give Bemis clear leadership of the global industry.
Bemis has a relatively strong balance sheet, with 33 percent gearing, a net-debt-to-earnings ratio of 1.6 to one and an earnings-to-interest-expenses ratio of 9.9 to one, but Macquarie said the group would have to raise equity if it wanted to acquire Alcan's packaging business.
Source: lexisnexis
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