With Hassia Packaging India, IMA sets sight on food and dairy
The international machine manufacturer, IMA, Industria Macchine Automatiche, headquartered in Bologna, Italy, acquired the operating business of Oystar Group, a global producer of packaging machines, from private equity firm Odewald, earlier this year.
25 Jul 2015 | 9446 Views | By PrintWeek India
On 22 July, IMA and Hassia Packaging India, a part of Oyster Group, held a press conference in Pune to speak about the acquisition. Hassia India will henceforth be known as IMA Dairy & Food Holding Hassia India. After the Oystar acquisition, the IMA Group’s global turnover is expected to exceed one-billion Euros annually.
IMA also owns a pharmaceutical packaging equipment company in India, named IMA-PG, operating with two plants in Mumbai and one in Indore. With the new acquisition, the company will have four plants in India with combined employee strength of around 500.
In existence from past 15 years, Hassia Packaging’s manufacturing facility is located at Sanaswadi, on the outskirts of Pune. The company has been consistently developing packaging machineries with European technology, and modifying as per the Indian requirements by light weighting machines while providing the flexibility of field upgradation and options for throughput speeds.
Hassia India has a strong hold in the food, dairy, agrochemical, washing powder, shampoo, hair oil, nutraceuticals segments with packaging majors like Unilever, ITC, P&G, Perfetti, Kraft Foods, GSK, Danone and Abbott. It also exports 30% of its packaging machines to international markets in Africa, SAARC and Southeast Asia.
Addressing the audience during the press conference, K Ravi, managing director, Hassia Packaging India said, “We are happy to be a part of the IMA Group and together with their technological know-how and our understanding of the Indian market, I am confident that the new company, IMA Dairy & Food Holding will reinforce Hassia’s commitment and capabilities to continue delivering world-class products and services.”
Adding to Hassia’s director’s future plans, IMA’s CEO Andrea Malagoli said, “The product range of Hassia India is ideal for enhancing our product portfolio in the dairy and food industry. These two segments have been growing in India for the few years now, so the local demand for packaging machines is rising steadily. Our new setup combines our leading expertise in the business and lets us expand our capacities.”
Malagoli also highlighted that IMA would like to see Hassia India double its exports to 60% of the production. He further said that IMA is looking at mutual cooperation with transfer of technology from Europe to India and production of quality parts and components by Indian vendors for export to Europe.
“IMA may even explore synergies between IMA-PG and Hassia India,” added Malagoli.
Over the last few months, the company has stepped into intense business activities in the Asian market. It has sold four IMA-built wrapping machines and one P300 FFS machine by Hassia to Indian customers, for packaging butter into individual servings. Altogether, the former Oystar Group exported more than 100 packaging machines from Germany to India.
The IMA Group is actively looking at its Indian acquisition as a hub for developing and manufacturing machines for the emerging markets. “The future of IMA-Hassia is very interesting,” concluded Malagoli.
IMA is a global market leader in the development and production of packaging machines for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, tea, coffee, dairy and food and beverage industries.