Stars-and-Stripes future for Negri Bossi and Bi-Power: The Sacmi Group officialises the sale of the Plastics Division to US giant Kingsbury, generating new manufacturing synergies and further employment opportunities

The Sacmi Group officialises the sale of the Plastics Division to US giant Kingsbury, generating new manufacturing synergies and further employment opportunities

The ability to lead in several different industries and business branches. Yet also a rare capacity to look ahead and remain true to a challenging commitment, one that has been the Group’s hallmark for decades: investment in technology and human capital to bring about the conditions – through future-oriented corporate and managerial decisions – for growth and expansion on world markets.

These, then, are the key points underlying the transaction, officialised today, via which the Sacmi Group will transfer the entire Plastics Division to the Kingsbury Group, a large multinational based in Rochester, New York, USA: global players in the automotive, aerospace and electronic components industries, they have been doing business for over 120 years. “This sale is in keeping with Sacmi’s desire to streamline management and focus more on the ceramics and packaging sectors” stated the Sacmi Group’s General Manager, Pietro Cassani (who will, following this operation, become a member of the American giant’s board of directors). The transaction was aided by Rothschild and, on the legal side, by the lawyer Mr. Bovesi of the law firm Bovesi Cartwright Pescatore.

Three ‘family jewels’ will, thanks to their transfer to Kingsbury, experience new growth opportunities. The first, Negri Bossi, one of Europe’s leading designers of plastic injection moulding presses, has been a Sacmi Group company for some ten years now and during that decade this Cologno Monzese-based company has undergone extensive reorganisation and seen its product range steadily expand towards the top end of the market. The second jewel, Bi-Power, is a Sacmi branch specialising in the manufacture of very large presses and is already a long-standing supplier to Europe’s major automobile manufacturers such as Fiat-Chrysler. Last but certainly not least, comes Roboline-Sytrama of Vignate (Milan), a provider of robotized business solutions to the Plastics industry.

“The Kingsbury Group” explains Cassani, “undoubtedly has the skills needed to give this business, currently worth some 100 million Euros, a further boost”. Given the huge contribution the ‘new entries’ will make to this American giant (NB subsidiaries in Spain, France, UK, India, Canada and, naturally, the USA will also be ‘going American’), overall business volumes are expected to rise to 250 million Euros.

Then, of course, there are the positive effects the deal will have on Sacmi itself. “My presence on the new Kingsbury-Negri Bossi Board of Directors”, underlines Cassani, “ensures strong ties with the Sacmi Group, which remains the main supplier of high-tonnage presses, built in Imola. The current portfolio, at record levels ever since we started manufacturing in Imola, now obliges us to increase staff numbers there, and we do so with pleasure”.

In other words, this internationalization process is good for growth and employment here in Italy, as “the new owners have expressed their intention to maintain the current output facilities, especially in Cologno and at Sacmi Imola, without any personnel cuts. In fact”, reveals Cassani, “the emphasis is on growth, which is being driven by the two most promising markets, the USA and the UK”.

New and even more ambitious goals, then, for both Groups. And all the ingredients for success: the Kingsbury portfolio, in fact, spans – to name but a few – from the US Ministry of Defense to Chrysler, from Ford to Briggs & Stratton, from Whirlpool to Honeywell. And Sacmi, for its part, closed 2013 positively, confirming that the performance of 2012 has continued (also into the current year), with further growth of volumes and revenues across all divisions.