Ardagh Group acquires South African rival in $1bn deal

Financier Paul Coulson's Ardagh Group is to acquire South African rival Consol in a deal valued at about $1 billion (€890m).

Headquartered in Johannesburg and founded in 1946, Consol operates four glass-production facilities. serving customers principally in the beer, wine, spirits, food and non-alcoholic beverage sectors. Consol reported consolidated revenues of ZAR9.0 billion (€504m).

Ardagh is to buy the company for an equity value of ZAR10.1 billion (€565.4m). It said it expects to finance the acquisition through a combination of its own cash resources and the assumption of ZAR5.7 billion (€318m) existing net debt at Consol.

The enterprise value of the transaction represents a multiple of approximately 6.6 times of annual adjusted earnings to the end of September.

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"We are very pleased to expand our European and North America presence in glass packaging into Africa with the acquisition of Consol, a high-quality business led by an excellent management team. Consol is a market leader in the region, with great relationships across a diversified domestic and multinational customer base," said Mr Coulson, Ardagh's chairman.

Citigroup acted as exclusive financial adviser to Ardagh, and Barclays acted as exclusive financial adviser to Consol.