Grafham Holdings June 2023 .
Press Release
21-June-2023
Irish owned Packaging Holdings Ltd. expands into UK in merger with major brand and retail packaging firm, Grafham Holdings Ltd. New sustainable packaging group formed following €40 million investment.
Irish owned sustainable packaging investment firm Packaging Holdings Ltd. www.packagingholdings.org has announced a major UK expansion with a merger for an undisclosed sum with Grafham Holdings Ltd. (www.grafhamholdings.com), a company with a turnover in excess of GBP£30 million and more than 120 employees.
As a result of this investment and merger of companies, Packaging Holdings is now a new group of 10 sustainable packaging companies in Ireland and the UK which has over 200 employees and €50 million annual revenue.
The new group is focused on sustainability by using paper materials to manufacture paper packaging products such as paper bags, corrugated boxes, corrugated displays, sugar bags, flour bags, paper straws, dairy packaging, paper labels and daymarks labelling client/service solutions in Ireland, the UK and continental Europe.
Earlier in 2023, Packaging Holdings raised €40 million from investors including IFP Investments, Staunch Limited, Martello Fund 1 DAC, Allied Irish Bank and the owners of the businesses. The merger with Grafham Holdings Ltd is the fourth investment by Packaging Holdings within 6 months and follows deals for the purchase of Cavan based corrugated box company ACE Corrugated, and Dublin based corrugated box company Craftpak Packaging. J.F. Walsh Packaging was acquired for an undisclosed sum in April of this year and is a leading Irish manufacturer of printed paper bags from its factory in Roscrea.
The CEO and Chairman of the new group is Barry O’Brien supported by Eamon Farrell as COO, Fintan Flood as CCO, Daniel O’Connell as CFO and the CEOs of the 10 businesses. Tony Richie, the former CFO of Smurfit’s is Chairman of the Advisory Board and Tom Reynolds, CEO Martello, is the Group General Counsel.
Barry O’Brien commented that he was delighted with the merger and elaborated that “The groups paper packaging products are typically manufactured locally to our customers, just in time to order, with planned use of green electricity, via PV Solar installations. Grafham Holdings and the 3 Irish businesses are each in existence from over 20 years and with the present CEO’s, namely Pat O’Reilly, Paul Murphy, Shauna Walsh and Kevin Beamon all becoming investors in Packaging Holdings and continuing to lead their individual businesses, each company can offer our over 1,500 business customers an increased product range, increased expertise, increased capacity, and additional green new packaging products by leveraging from the synergies and greater scale of the new group.”
Companies per merger
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Packaging Holdings is an Ireland incorporated company focused on the manufacturing of paper packaging. It comprises of 3 recently acquired companies, namely Ace Corrugated, Craftpak Packaging and Walsh Packaging. The circular economy and the replacement of plastic by paper boxes and paper bags is high on the agenda for Packaging Holdings. With dedicated manufacturing facilities in Dublin, Cavan and Roscrea, our customers include leaders in many sectors including likes of Zeus, Kerry, Dunnes Stores, Aer Lingus, Essentra, Univet, Allergan, Musgraves, Bunzl and Dell.
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Grafham Holdings is a UK incorporated company which specialises in the manufacture and distribution of food packaging and daymark printed labels solutions to the UK and European food industry. Grafham Holdings comprises of seven constituent businesses namely Hovat Ltd, RPS. (Retail Packaging Solutions Ltd.), Delta Pack Ltd., PH Labels Ltd, Advance Bunzl Ltd., Paper Straws London Ltd and MJ Supply Ltd. With operations in Birmingham, Kent, Cheshire and Nottinghamshire, clients include leading food brands and major own label retailers such as Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsburys and ASDA and large food businesses such as Muller and Arla.
Investor Relations Information
Homepages and Companies Numbers
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Corrugated Packaging Holding Limited, trading as Packaging Holdings
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Ireland Companies Records Office #721721 www.packagingholdings.org
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Grafham Holdings Limited
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UK Companies House #04241720 www.grafhamholdings.com
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Service Providers to Deal
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Legal: OCWM Law led by Edel Conway and Michael Walsh.
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Financial Due Diligence: John Donohoe & Co. led by John Donohoe and RBK led by Aidan Heavey.
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Bankers: Allied Irish Bank led by Tom O’Broin, Alan Doyle and Enda Grenham
Investors into Packaging Holdings
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IFP Investments is an Ireland investment firm founded by a group of former CEO and CFOs, chaired by Barry O’Brien, Honourary Consul from Jamaica to Ireland, whose investors include Williams Caribbean Capital and Eamon Farrell founder of Irish Flexible Packaging.
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Martello Fund 1 DAC, a member of the Martello Group acts as a family office for Doug Brennan, with Tom Reynolds as CEO. Martello’s investments in Ireland include the D Hotel and Simtech Aviation. More/…
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Staunch Limited acts as a family office for James Healey from Yorkshire. Staunch Limited invests in a broad range of asset classes in Europe including the development of high-quality properties in the UK and Portugal. Staunch’s principles are Declan Cassidy and Andrew O’Brien
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Previous Owners and now shareholders in Packaging Holdings
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Kevin Beamon and Bill Habergham of Grafham Holdings
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Shauna Walsh of Walsh Packaging
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Paul Murphy of Craftpak Packaging
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Pat O’Reilly and Paul Doyle of Ace Corrugated
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10 Subsidiaries of Packaging Holdings
Name
Main Products
Homepage
Headquarters
Ace Corrugated
Corrugated boxes
Cavan, Ire
Craftpak Packaging
Corrugated boxes and displays
Rathcoole, Ire
Walsh Packaging
Paper bags
Roscrea, Ire
Hovat
Dairy product wrappings, paper bags, labels
Kent, UK
Retail Packaging Solutions [1]
Paper bags, corrugated boxes, labeling solutions
Nottingham, UK
Delta Pack
Paper bags
Birmingham, UK
Advance Bunzl
Adhesive labels
Kent, UK
Paper Straws London
Paper straws
Kent, UK
PH Labels
Labels
Chester, UK
MJ Supply Limited
Paper nag
Kent, UK
[1] Retail Packaging Solutions has the European franchise for labeling solutions from leading US provider CMC Group, whose solutions include the MenuPilot™ automation platform, a client/server labeling hardware and software offering.