Cosmetics packaging molder Risdon seeks plant in China
By Angie DeRosa
PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
SHANGHAI (February 13, 2007) — Risdon International Inc., a molder of products for the cosmetics market, has international expansion plans under its new Shanghai-based private equity owner.
Crown Holdings Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, announced February 1 that it had divested its remaining North American plastics business to private equity group Teahouse Partners Ltd. of Shanghai.
The plastics unit, an injection molder and blow molder, operated under the Risdon name, specializing in the designand manufacture of cosmetics packaging. The unit is based in Watertown, Connecticut.
Risdon President Stephen Pearlman said in a February 2 telephone interview from China that a subcontractor currently is producing for the company in China.
“The purpose of this trip is to investigate facilities that we want to buy,” Pearlman said. “Our goal is to have our own facility here, within the first half of 2007. We need the territorial expansion. There is a growing demand for our products because of growing consumer power.”
Pearlman said the expansion is a natural evolution for Risdon, which makes products for companies like Estee Lauder, Almay, Elizabeth Arden and L’Oreal.
Pearlman said that Risdon needed a partner that was committed to expanding globally. Under Teahouse Partners, the company found private investors that are committed to growing Risdon as a major packaging player, and its officials are in it for the long run.
Its first step will be to tackle Asia. Its European business had been sold to RPC Group plc last year. As a result of that divestiture, Risdon International has to re-enter the European market.
In 2007, Risdon will set up an office with a manager for Europe that will create sales opportunities and evaluate manufacturing options.
In Reynosa, Mexico, officials have doubled the space by adding a second facility for assembly and finishing operations.
Pearlman said its facilities in the northeast United States should not be affected. It operates plants in Middletown, New York; Watertown, Connecticut; Laconia, New Hampshire; and one in Canada, in Barrie, Ontario.
“There is no immediate plan to close any of those facilities in the Northeast,” he said. “We’re going to fight very hard to have a manufacturing presence in North America because at this time, we are the sole major cosmetic packaging supplier that continues to maintain facilities in North America. And we believe very strongly that we should be close to filling operations.”
Pearlman will remain its president. James Adams is vice president of operations; Faqueer Ahmad is its executive vice president of international. According to Crown Holdings, the unit had $90 million (737 million yuan) in sales in 2005.
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