For an undisclosed amount, film manufacturer RKW (Frankenthal / Germany; www.rkw-group.com) has sold its subsidiary unit RKW ACE (Liège / Belgium; www.ace-films.be) to Standard Investment (Brussels / Belgium; www.standardinvestment.be) in June 2020. The investor is focusing on small and medium-sized companies in the Benelux region and Scandinavia. RKW stated that the transaction contributed to sharpen the Frankenthal-based company’s focus on its core areas of hygiene, packaging and agriculture.

ACE manufactures embossed polyolefin cast films, film/non-woven laminates and perforated films for the hygiene and medical sectors. The company was founded in 1973 and has been part of the RKW group since 1999. Last year, it achieved a turnover of EUR 30m with 80 employees. Guy Pinchard, Patricia Featherstone and Régis Lamoline will continue to manage the company under the new owner. “We are convinced that ACE will remain a strong stand-alone business with great growth potential,” said Harald Biederbick, CEO of the RKW group. During a limited transitional period, RKW will continue to cooperate with ACE.

Previously, RKW also announced that it was investing in a production line that combines multicolour printing and coating at its Wasserburg site in Germany. With its shortened production process, the line is designed to produce about 250m m² of bag film annually. The plant in Wasserburg has been part of RKW since 2002. Last year, the group generated a turnover of EUR 831m with around 3,000 employees and processed 352,000 t of plastics at its 19 production sites.