Mondi has completed the acquisition of a control position in Suez Bags Company S.A.E (‘Suez Bags’) for EGP26.01 per share, which implies an equity value of EGP284 million (€13.6 million) on a 100% basis. Mondi now owns 96% of the company.
Suez Bags is an industrial bags producer operating one plant near Cairo in Egypt. The plant serves mostly regional customers and is Mondi’s second industrial bags acquisition in Egypt, following the acquisition of NPP in June this year.
Increasing footprint in the Middle East
Furthermore, the business will be integrated into Mondi’s Fibre Packaging business. Mondi is one of the global leaders in industrial bags. It has more than 40 operating sites including five in the Middle East.
The acquisition of Suez Bags complements Mondi’s network of plants in the growing Middle East region. It provides the company with a leading position in Egypt to grow its business.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.
The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.
Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.
As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.
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