August 2005

Confoil divests cabinets and hits the acquisition trail

Confoil has sold its display cabinet business to Trefco and has heralded acquisitions of its own.

Retail display cabinets had been a minor part of Confoil's $50 million business and the July sale of the division known as Confoil Equipment is part of a strategy that will see Confoil focus on its core business of food packaging.

While best known for its aluminium foil containers and pressed paperboard dual-ovenable trays, Dualpak, Confoil has expanded its range significantly over the past few years to include a range of decorative baking moulds.

The sale comes as the company enters a fresh growth phase, according to CEO Wolfgang Rosenkotter. Although refusing to be drawn on the details, Dr Rosenkotter confirmed industry rumours that the packaging manufacturer was planning to acquire new businesses.

"To achieve the planned growth targets, Confoil is currently negotiating with well-known businesses that are available for acquisition," he said.

"Confoil has a proven track record of growth through buying quality companies and integrating such organisations into a strong homogenous entity."

In 2001, Confoil acquired the packaging division of Capral, formerly known as Alcan, considerably expanding its range and generating the economies of scale that have maintained the Melbourne-based manufacturer's competitiveness with imported food containers.

While predicting that negotiations for the new businesses would be complete by the end of the year, Dr Rosenkotter said Confoil was proceeding cautiously to protect its corporate values.

"As we've grown, Confoil has not compromised its highly valued philosophies of caring for its employees, producing top quality products, providing a consistently superior service to customers as well as remaining competitive in a very price sensitive market," he said.

"In line with this approach, we didn't take the decision to sell Confoil Equipment lightly. It was an important aspect of the sale that our people involved in the equipment business would be looked after by Trefco. We're delighted that they're in the safe hands of a local business that manufactures fine quality food display cabinets and won't let our customers down."