When it comes to selling plastic products, Berry Plastics practically buries the competition. The company is a leading maker of injection-molded plastic products. Its lineup includes drink cups, bottles, closures, tubes and prescription containers, stretch films, plastic sheeting, tapes, and housewares. Customers include the health care, personal care, food and beverage, agricultural, industrial, construction, aerospace, and automotive industries. The company has about 85 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as extensive distribution capabilities. Apollo Management owns a majority stake in Berry Plastics, which went public in 2012.
After about five years of being backed by private equity firms, Berry filed to go public in March 2012 and began trading in October. With plans to raise as much as $500 million, Berry ultimately raised a lower-end target of $470 million. Its goal is to repay debt (it owed roughly $4.5 billion in long-term debt) and fund working capital and general corporate purposes. Berry made some $4.6 billion in revenues in 2011, but it suffered a net loss of $299 million, mostly as a result of high operating costs and interest expense due to increased borrowings to fund acquisitions.
Berry serves more than 13,000 customers. Its revenues are contingent on its diverse product line and geographic end markets; each responds to the economy in different ways, giving the company a balance for its bottom line. Collectively, the food and beverage and healthcare and personal care markets generated 75% of Berry's total revenue in 2011.
Berry views buying and allying as the path to survival and prosperity. It uses its acquisitions to build and hold market positions, expand product lines, and reduce manufacturing and overhead costs through complementary operations and the introduction of advanced processes. The company acquired rival Rexam's specialty and beverage closures operations for $350 million in cash. The deal, which closed in 2011, helped Rexam reduce debt and gave Berry seven manufacturing facilities in the US and others in Brazil, Malaysia, and Mexico. Earlier that year, Berry bagged LINPAC Packaging Filmco for $19 million. Filmco made PVC stretch film packaging for fresh meats, produce, freezer and specialty applications, and it now operates in Berry's Engineered Materials segment.
Additionally, technology and new products provide a mainstay for company growth. Berry's four operating divisions -- Rigid Open Top; Rigid Closed Top; Engineered Materials; and Flexible Packaging -- manufacture products using primary molding methods, including injection, thermoforming, compression, tube extrusion, and blow molding. These processes begin with raw plastic pellets and resins, which are then converted into finished products. Berry uses its technology edge to compete with rivals, such as Plastipak with its ThermoShape process. Berry launched its Thermoset cross-linked polymeric composition process that cuts polypropylene content by about 50% in mid-2010.
To keep its technology edge on competitors, Berry spent more than $20 million on R&D in 2011. It maintains major technical centers and quality laboratories for product testing and experimenting in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. These centers drive prototypes of new ideas, as well as conduct research and development for new products and processes.
One of the most important raw materials for Berry is polyolefin resin, and the company produces over 2.5 billion pounds of this material each year. Based on the need for this material, the company maintains strong relationships with suppliers Chevron, DAK Americas, Dow, DuPont, Eastman Chemical, Exxon Mobil, Flint Hills Resources, and Sunoco. Other core materials include natural and butyl rubber, chemicals and adhesives, paper and packaging materials, polyester, raw cotton, linerboard and kraft, woven and non-woven cloth, and foil, which are sourced from a broader number of companies. – less