Sonoco (Hartsville, South Carolina / USA; www.sonoco.com) has announced the completion of its acquisition of Thermoform Engineered Quality and Plastique Holdings – together known as TEQ (Huntley, Illinois / USA, www.teqnow.com), a manufacturer of thermoformed packaging. The seller was ESCO Technologies (St. Louis, Missouri / USA; www.escotechnologies.com), and the purchase price was around USD 187m (EUR 169m) in cash.

Sonoco used short-term credit facilities to fund the acquisition, which it expects to be earnings accretive in 2020. TEQ president Randy Loga will remain with Sonoco.

TEQ sales totalled USD 87m in the year to 30 September 2019. It has three thermoforming and extrusion facilities in the US along with a thermoforming operation in the UK and a thermoforming and moulded-fibre manufacturing plant in Poland. All have cleanroom capabilities to produce barrier packaging systems for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

The Illinois-based company also produces recyclable, moulded-pulp-fire packaging and thermoformed plastic packaging for multiple consumer products primarily in Europe. It has approximately 500 employees.

Sonoco said the acquisition will help to further expand its healthcare packaging business. It includes “ThermoSafe” temperature-assured pharmaceutical packaging, injection-moulded vials, multi-cell cuvettes and appliances, thermoformed trays for medical devices and products as well as the heat-sealing equipment made by unit Alloyd for commercial medical applications.