Riversco is owned by French PAI and British Columbia Investment Management in recent years. Lately, it looked as if the glass company might be doing an initial public offering in the United States. It has now been decided to transfer the majority stake to KKR.

Seven billion

The amount of money involved was not disclosed, but Bloomberg News has heard from insiders that Refresco has a price tag of around €7 billion. Existing shareholders still hold significant minority rights.

Refresco was previously listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, until the company was acquired by a consortium led by PAI and disappeared from the stock exchange in 2018. At that time, Refresco was valued at €3.4 billion. Since then, the value of the company has become much more. In the summer of last year, the company acquired three more US production sites of Coca-Cola.

Stacker

Refresco claims to be the largest independent packaging company in Europe and North America. The company started in 1999 as Menken Beverages, which in turn grew out of the family business Menken. The company continued the Refresco name a year later and grew rapidly through acquisitions, including the British acquisition of Gerber Emig. Today more than 10,000 people work there.

KKR, the new owner, is no stranger to the Netherlands. The investor previously invested more money in holiday parks in Roompot, optical fiber platform Open Dutch Fiber, parking service provider Q-Park and software developer Exact. In addition, it was recently announced that a consortium led by KKR would buy bike manufacturer Accell. This is the company behind brands like Batavus and Sparta.