Dubai-headquartered Taghleef Industries is acquiring Spanish maker of speciality films Derprosa Film from 3i Group, Baring and other minority shareholders. The transaction is subject to customary completion conditions and is expected to close by the end of April, 2014.

With more than 25 years of experience, Derprosa Film supplies speciality films for graphic arts applications for luxury packaging and is a leading supplier of films for flexible packaging converters in Spain.

Taghleef currently has eight production sites in Italy, Hungary, the UAE, Oman, Egypt, Australia, the US and Canada, with a nominal capacity of 385,000 tonnes/year. It develops, manufactures and markets BOPP (biaxially-oriented polypropylene), BOPLA (NATIVIA range) and CPP (cast polypropylene) films for snacks, confectionery, bakery/biscuits, fresh produce packaging as well as for labelling and adhesive tapes. It says it offers a portfolio of high quality transparent, white voided, metallised and EXTENDO high barrier films to its customers in more than 100 countries.

The above acquisition follows Taghleef’s earlier announcement of a major investment in its Hungarian manufacturing plant that will boost up its five-layer capacity in Europe. It has upgraded a 8.2 m BOPP line to five layers that will increase its current five-layer film capacity in Europe to a total of 60,000 tonnes/year, positioning itself as a leader in Europe.

With this new capacity, Taghleef says it will reinforce significantly its market position to serve the label (specifically IML) as well as the food packaging industries. The five-layer film technical advantages will also be used for other specific non-food applications.