December 2, 2009
Danish injection moulder Rosti Technical Plastics is to be bought by privately-owned Swedish investment company Nordstjernan through its Stella Plastic Holding subsidiary. Stella was formerly GP Plastic, an injection moulder with plants in Gislaved in Sweden and Dresden in Germany working in the packaging and medical technology sectors. Rosti has injection moulding plants in China, India, Netherlands, Poland and Scotland. Nordstjernan/Stella has an option to purchase Rosti's US operations. Stella and Rosti are to be merged and named Rosti.
     No financial terms are being disclosed. Turnover of Rosti Technical Plastics in the past 12 months was Eur 112 million, while Stella had sales of Eur 42 million. The merged company will have around 1,800 employees.
     The parent company of Rosti Technical Plastics, Rosti A/S, is part of the Danish oil and transport group Møller-Mærsk. The sale is part of a long-term plan by Møller-Mærsk to dispose of non-core businesses. Rosti Technical Plastics has been up for sale for a while, but was taken off the market in April when, despite interest from a number of buyers, Møller-Mærsk said it was not being offered the right price. Before that in January Rosti A/S had increased its share capital to bolster the moulder against the recession.
     Apart from its Stella/GP Plastic ownership Nordstjernan has other plastics interests through Exel Composites in Finland and KMT Waterjet of Sweden, the former ABB and Ingersoll-Rand waterjet cutting machine business whose products are used to trim composites mouldings.
     The sale is expected to be complete in the first quarter next year.