Belgium’s paper, board and packaging manufacturer VPK Group will acquire a majority stake in Italy’s corrugated board and packaging producer Zetacarton. A corresponding agreement has been already signed, the companies informed in mid-October.
Through the acquisition of Zetacarton VPK Group will enter the corrugated packaging market in Italy. The transaction was in line with VPK Group’s “strategy to focus on sustainable growth and further expand its vertically integrated value-added business model across Europe,” VPK announced.
Zetacarton, owned and led by the Zanfrini family, is based near Como in northern Italy. The company has a staff of 110 and can produce 110 million m² of corrugated products. In 2022, Zetacarton’s output reached 106 Mio m² and the company generated sales revenue of €75m.
Serena and Giuseppe Zanfrini would continue to lead the company, VPK and Zetacarton announced.
Zetacarton produces corrugated board and packaging, including niche products such as fanfold and bigbox packaging. With their product offering of printed fanfold Zetacarton complements VPK Group’s offering and further expands the group’s geographical coverage for fanfold and enables it to serve e-commerce logistics distribution centres across Europe, VPK said.
Last summer VPK Group’s paper division started up a 450,000 tpy recycled corrugated case material machine at the former Double-A Alizay site in France. The containerboard machine at the VPK Paper Normandie site can produce recycled medium and testliner grades in basis weights of 70-135 g/m². In the fourth quarter 2022, the company had already started a new corrugated board line adjacent to the Alizay paper mill. According to VPK, the new corrugator at the Alizay site produces Z-fold corrugated board. The product, which is similar to the fanfold technology offered by Zetacarton, is specifically designed to produce protective “fit-to-size” e-commerce packaging, and helps eliminating over-packaging and reducing logistical costs.
