Europe’s leading producer of paper packaging, the Irish Smurfit Kappa, received approval from Bulgaria’s Commission for Protection of Competition to acquire the Bulgarian company for corrugated packaging, Vitavel, based in Lukovit. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Vitavel has a diversified customer base in both conventional and laminated packaging and its location north of Sofia offers great potential for Smurfit Kappa’s operation in the high-margin litho-laminated market segment. With the acquisition, Smurfit plans to strengthen its market position in the Balkan region as it already operates businesses in Romania, Greece, and Serbia. This is the second acquisition of Bulgarian corrugated packaging company for Smurfit Kappa. The company acquired Balkanpack, supplier of corrugated packaging to the food, agricultural, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and chemical industries, specialized in large volume packaging and industrial packaging, earlier in March this year. Balkanpack is well placed to serve Northern Greece and Turkey industrial markets.
Smurfit Kappa based in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the leading providers of paper-based packaging in the world, with 45,000 employees and operations in 33 countries across Europe and North America. The company produces and trades corrugated cardboard, corrugated packaging and reached a turnover of €8.6 Bn for 2017, of which €11.8 M from its Bulgarian operations.
Vitavel is the successor of the plant in Lukovit, established in 1970. In 1995 the enterprise was privatized by the management team. Vitavel produces corrugated board, board packaging and masked packaging with multiple spot gluing. The packaging is designed for storage and transportation of food, cosmetics, fruits and vegetables, meat and meat products, clothing, sanitary ware, juices etc. Vitavel has its own car fleet which allows timely delivery and distribution of their products. In 2017 the company realized revenue of €7 M.
