Belfast-headquartered label, carton and rigid box manufacturer MSO Group is to buy pharmaceutical packaging specialist Storey Evans in Bradford for an undisclosed sum.
It hopes the move will establish it as one of the UK and Ireland’s leading pharma packaging producers.
MSO says the acquisition will strengthen both businesses, and marks the start of a major expansion programme for its own operation, which also has two other plants alongside its northern Irish MSO Cleland site, Galloways and Cartonmaster, at Poynton and Middlewich in Cheshire respectively. A printed packaging supplier to the food and drink, computer, pharmaceutical and textile sectors, MSO employs around 230 at the three sites, with customers including Moy Park, Diageo, Hewlett Packard and Victoria’s Secret.
Dominic Walsh, ceo, says: “This acquisition will complement the specialist short-run facility we already have at Cartonmaster, and allow us further opportunity for development.”
Walsh says the Cartonmaster site’s focus has shifted in the last two years from mainly producing food to pharma packaging, largely because the pharma market “is more stable and does not depend on the fluctuations of the high street”. He says: “From a standing start two years ago Cartonmaster has developed considerable short-run, pharma carton printing expertise, which will fit well with that of Storey Evans, one of the UK’s top three pharma packaging specialists. There should also be positive spin-offs for our Belfast MSO Cleland folding carton and self-adhesive label operation, and our smaller Galloways business, a food packaging specialist.”
Storey Evans was founded in the 19th century; this is the first time the business has passed out of family ownership. The 180-strong firm’s clients include pharmaceutical giant GSK.
MSO has also announced it is to buy Hannibal Labels, a 58-strong self-adhesive labelling company based near Leicester, whose customers include Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Marks & Spencer. The company had recently gone into administration following a series of failed management buy-outs and takeovers and MSO says news of the purchase has been “warmly welcomed” by unions.
