Sale of St Neots Packaging to Coveris

St Neots Packaging Limited, a £37 million turnover designer and manufacturer of packaging solutions for the food and retail sector, was acquired by Coveris on 11 June 2014 . Coveris is an affiliate of Sun European Partners and this represents the latest acquisition into the Coveris group, which includes Britton Group, Paccor and Paragon.

This transaction also provides an exit for Endless LLP, which supported an MBO of St Neots Packaging in 2008.  The business has grown sales by more than 75% during this period, delivering market-changing products to the food industry.  The terms of the sale to Coveris are undisclosed but this realises a strong investment return for Endless and the management team, led by Andrew Ducker and David Manning.

Ian Plumb, a portfolio director at Endless LLP, said: “St Neots Packaging’s reputation for new product development and innovation made it very attractive to trade competitors.  We have seen the management team drive strong growth in profitability over the past few years, fuelled by the NPD abilities of the business and in particular the paperboard sandwich skillets that are now seen across many UK supermarkets and other volume vendors of sandwiches.”

Endless LLP was advised by Livingstone Partners LLP and Walker Morris LLP.  Coveris and Sun European Partners were advised by DLA.