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Bridgepoint Capital agrees E120m buy-out of Italian firm Caffaro

Pan-European private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital has acquired Italian packaging company Caffaro Flexible Packaging for E120m. It is Bridgepoint's fourth investment from its Second European Private Equity Fund, which closed in May 2002 at just over E2bn.

Guido Belli, Managing Director of Bridgepoint's Milan office, explained the attractiveness of the deal saying that Caffaro's share of the European flexible packaging market, worth an estimated E6bn, was growing rapidly.

‘Caffaro CFP has an excellent management team and already has a very good competitive position in terms of both its market share and quality of product. In addition, the complexity of the technology they use and their capex requirements mean that the sector also has high barriers to entry,' he added.

CFP's current management team, headed by Maurizio de Costanzo, will remain with the firm after the buyout.

The deal marks a continuation of Bridgepoint's strategy of investment in European mid-market buy-outs. ‘The European mid-market is emerging as a place where investors want to be. This is clear from the number of new investors attracted to EPEF II who are making allocations with private equity firms with a proven middle-market strategy,' said William Jackson, chief executive.

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