— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

US packaging group Sonoco (Hartsville, South Carolina; www.sonoco.com) has sold its ThermoSafe business unit to New York-based private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners for USD 725 mn (EUR 619 mn). The deal includes a base purchase price of USD 650 mn and an additional USD 75 mn linked to this year’s earnings. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025. Sonoco plans to use the net proceeds to repay debt.

ThermoSafe is headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and provides packaging systems for the transportation of temperature-sensitive products such as pharmaceuticals, biologics, and vaccines. It has approximately 900 employees in North and South America, EMEA, and Asia. It uses a variety of insulation materials, including EPS- and polyurethane-moulded parts. In 2024, the unit generated sales of around USD 240 mn with EBITDA of USD 50 mn.

Related: US packaging group divests EPS business

Sonoco had announced last year that it would focus more strongly on paper and metal-based packaging solutions after the US group acquired the aerosol and metal packaging manufacturer Eviosys (Zug, Switzerland) from KPS Capital Partners for around USD 3.9 bn in June 2024.

In 2024, the Protective Solutions division, which includes foam components made from expanded polypropylene and expanded polystyrene, was sold to financial investor Black Diamond (Greenwich, UK; www.bdcm.com). This year saw the sale of the Thermoformed & Flexible Packaging (TFP) unit to Japanese film and packaging manufacturer Toppan (Tokyo; www.holdings.toppan.com).