Following its purchase of aluminium blister foil and rigid PVC and PET film producer Oai Hung (Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam; www.oaihung.com), Constantia Flexibles (Vienna / Austria; www.cflex.com) now has its first pharmaceutical production site in Asia. Financial details of the transaction, which was first announced in April and has now been completed, were not disclosed. However, Pierre-Henri Bruchon, head of Constantia Flexibles’ Pharma division, said the company sees “Oai Hung as a hub for further expansion in the region in the future.”

Founded in 1988, family-owned Oai Hung employs about 240 workers and posted sales of EUR 25m in 2015. The company’s production site in Ho Chi Minh City includes a clean room that meets international standards. In addition to its pharmaceutical activities, Oai Hung also operates in the dairy lidding sector.

The purchase strengthens Constantia Flexibles’ Pharma division, which purports to be the world’s second largest flexible packaging producer for the pharmaceutical as well as the home and personal care industries. The unit operates three pre-material production sites in Austria, Germany and Spain, which in turn cater to plants in Belgium, the UK and Germany, where the foils and laminates are printed and slit. The Pharma division has about 1,000 employees, and last posted annual sales of EUR 300m.

The Austrian group as a whole has more than 10,000 global employees, spread across 54 sites in 23 countries. Constantia Flexibles acquired companies in South Africa and Australia in 2015, which helped it lift 2015 sales by 9.4% year-on-year to EUR 1.89 bn (see Plasteurope.com of 06.04.2016).