Johannesburg - Two of Africa’s packaging giants have formed a R1 billion joint venture to push their exposure into new Southern African markets.
The partnership is between GZ Industries (GZI), which claims to be West Africa’s largest producer of aluminium beverage cans, and Golden Era Group, which calls itself South Africa’s largest independent packaging company.
The venture will be called Gayatri GZI Beverage Cans and its first project will be the construction of a large-scale beverage can plant in Johannesburg, which will start production in the first quarter of next year.
The plant, which will serve customers in-country and across Southern Africa, will manufacture two-piece aluminium beverage cans in multiple sizes.
South African workers will be employed and trained to operate the facility, which will boast an initial production capacity of 1.2 billion aluminium beverage cans each year.
Once the plant is completed, GZI will have the capacity to manufacture more than 3.5 billion aluminium beverage cans every year.
GZI, which recently expanded its operations to Kenya and South Africa, was founded in 2006 and opened West Africa’s first can manufacturing plant in Agbara, Nigeria in 2010.
The group has since expanded its can operations to Aba, Nigeria, and has additional facilities under construction in Kenya and shortly, also South Africa. Through its pending acquisition of Frigoglass assets, GZI also has glass-manufacturing operations in Nigeria and Dubai.
GZI is backed by a strong shareholder group, which includes Standard Chartered Private Equity, the investment arm of Standard Chartered Bank. Other shareholders comprise Verod Capital, a leading investment firm based in Nigeria, and GZI’s founders.
Golden Era Group dates its history back to 1955 and is the third-largest printing and packaging company in South Africa. It has a national footprint company specialising in the manufacturing of kraft paper, corrugated cases, folding cartons, notestiks, paper bags, self-adhesive and IML labels, shrink sleeves, three piece metal cans, vacuum-formed and thermo-formed packaging.
Its joint venture with GZI will help extend Golden Era’s geographical footprint and promote product diversity.
Kishor Chhita, CEO of Golden Era, explains the collaboration with GZI “enables us to grow our South African operations and offer a more comprehensive range of packaging solutions to our customers”.
GZI CEO Motti Goldmintz says the company wants to become sub-Saharan Africa’s largest packaging-solution provider to the beverage industry.
“This partnership with Golden Era accelerates our access to new markets across Southern Africa, and consolidates our ongoing expansion efforts in West and East Africa.”
IOL