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Battenfeld Sails in Choppy Waters

In a time of overall economic uncertainty, Battenfeld Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH in Kottingbrunn, Austria, received some good news that keeps it financially afloat for the near term. Battenfeld’s path has been full of twists since its long-term owner, the SMS Group in Germany, sold the injection machinery builder to private-equity firm Adcuram Group AG in 2006. Last year, Adcuram sold the machine-building business to the British company OOD Private Equity Ltd., but Adcuram retained the Battenfeld spare parts and service arm. Then in early January, the machinery arm requested of an Austrian court to open bankruptcy proceedings.

            Things started looking up later in January, when the sale to OOD was nullified and the Battenfeld machinery and sales/service arms were reunited. By the end of that month, Battenfeld was able to bridge its short-term liquidity squeeze with a credit advance of 15 million Euros by an Austrian bank. A survival strategy was presented to the board of creditors and the bankruptcy court, and at press time it had been accepted by the creditors. A reorganization plan is in progress. The liquidator, Dr. Michael Lentsch, expressed optimism about these first steps toward stability and noted that Battenfeld recently gained two “major orders from international customers.”

SIG Sells Stretch-Blow Machinery Unit

Germany’s SIG Beverages, which includes SIG Corpoplast, a leading stretch-blow molding machine maker, and SIG Plasmax, a supplier of plasma barrier coatings, has been sold to Salzgitter AG, a German conglomerate. The acquisition strengthens Salzgitter’s position as single-source provider of plastic packaging, according to the company. The SIG businesses will be run under Salzgitter’s KMS AG subsidiary, which supplies filling and packaging systems.

Sumitomo Confirms Talks on Acquiring Demag

Last month, Japanese plastics machinery supplier Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. confirmed that it was in talks regarding the acquisition of Demag Plastics Group, Schwaig, Germany, although no decisions had been made. DPG is owned by Madison Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity company that purchased the Mannesmann Plastics Machinery (MPM) group in July 2006. DPG’s U.S. headquarters are at the former Van Dorn offices in Strongsville, Ohio. Sumitomo Plastics-Machinery is in Norcross, Ga., and builds machines here, which DPG no longer does.

Basell Completes Lyondell Acquisition

The recently completed merger of Basell Polyolefins in The Netherlands and Houston-based Lyondell Chemical Co. has resulted in the formation of LyondellBasell Industries, the world’s third largest independent chemical company. With corporate headquarters in Rotterdam, LyondellBasell is organized into four global business units. North American headquarters for the polymer business--which includes Equistar Chemicals--is at the former Basell offices in Wilmington, Del. LyondellBasell claims to be the world’s largest producer of polypropylene and advanced polyolefins, a leading supplier of polyethylene and catalysts, and the industry leader in licensing polypropylene and polyethylene processes.

Rapid Acquires Moditec’s Screenless Granulators

Rapid Granulator AB of Sweden (U.S. office in Rockford, Ill.) has acquired Moditec of France, which specialized in low-speed, screenless granulators designed with staggered rows of multiple “chipper” teeth on the rotor. The two companies had previously cooperated in low-speed granulator technologies. The acquisition expands Rapid’s low-speed granulator offerings and brings in Moditec’s Integrated Metal Detection technology, which Rapid plans to apply to its entire low-speed range soon.