On the afternoon of 25 March 2008, a press release has arrived saying that Flint Group has signed an agreement today with Siegwerk Group on the acquisition of Siegwerks’s packaging ink business in Australia and New Zealand. The agreement includes the intangible assets, sales, marketing and distribution channels of Siegwerk in both countries. The product range embraces flexible packaging (film and foil), sheet-fed, decorating inks and coatings. The acquired business in Australia and New Zealand has annual sales of around EUR 25 Million (Indian Rupees 160 crore).

The transaction is expected to close end of April 2008, subject to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approval. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

Our view is that the news is important both in the context of the consolidation of ink manufacturers over the last few years and for the effect of this process in India. It is just in the last few months, in fact since December 2007, that Seigwerk’s acquisition of most of Sicpa Indian assets particularly its ink manufacturing facility in Bhiwadi (80 kilometres from Delhi) and its sales and service organisation in India has successfully gone through all the government formalities. The security ink operation remains with Sicpa and the manufacture of security inks has been moved to Bhutan.