Crown Cork and Seal USA, a subsidiary of Crown Holdings, has begun construction on a $147 million, 327,000-square-foot facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Once complete, 126 people will work at the site.

BillerudKorsnäs invested over EUR 537 million to launch KM7, a new paperboard machine at its Gruvön mill in Sweden. The machine has an annual capacity of 550,000 metric tons and produces liquid packaging board, cartonboard, food service board, and liner.

French packaging specialist Janu'sac has installed a customized hybrid converting line, the eS2TA 140, developed with Spanish machinery manufacturer Enprom, to produce sustainable flexible packaging for the fruit and vegetable sector.

Kuala Lumpur-based Creador has reportedly emerged as frontrunner to acquire about 20% of packaging maker Shriji Polymers, including Tata Capital Healthcare Fund's 13% stake, at a valuation of Rs 1,200 crore. The report, dated 13 May 2020, is based on unnamed sources and Creador has signed an exclusivity agreement.

China Post's Shanxi branch published the shortlist for a supply contract for new packaging boxes, with Guangdong Tianyuan Industrial Group as first candidate at about CNY 229,265. The announcement was made on 13 May 2020 in Taiyuan.

Ontario-based Royal Containers has acquired Mississauga-based corrugated packaging maker C&B Display Packaging. The deal value was not disclosed.

Cello-Wrap Packaging, Inc. acquired Cello-Wrap Printing, Inc., a three-generation flexographic printing business in Farmersville, Texas, in a transaction facilitated by Benchmark International, announced on 12 May 2020.

Bag sealing tape and machine manufacturer We Seal invested over £1.1 million to bring all manufacturing technologies in-house at its Leeds facility, concluding in May 2020.

Segezha Packaging is investing EUR 1.3 million to expand its Ploiesti, Romania plant with a new warehouse and production hall on land bought last year, with construction expected to start in the third quarter.

Ring Container Technologies, a plastic container maker and supplier of PET snack containers, has partnered with John B. Sanfilippo & Son on the recyclable SmartCAN PET canister as a replacement for composite snack cans.

ALPLA is adding a second rPET extrusion line at its PET Recycling Team plant in Radomsko, Poland, doubling rPET capacity from 15,000 to 30,000 tonnes per year from early May 2020.

Flexipol, a UK manufacturer of sacks, bags, liners and pouches, has invested in all three of its manufacturing sites, adding 25% capacity as it integrates with sister brands Synpac and Palagan within Synnovia.

Grupo Opersan and Crown Embalagens signed a new contract for Opersan to install and operate for years a water reuse system at Crown's aluminium can plant in Cabreuva, Sao Paulo state, Brazil.

AST Plastic Containers, based on the Wrexham industrial estate in North Wales, was awarded a contract by Yara to supply its 10 litre jerry cans for use with AdBlue.

Georgia-Pacific opened a new facility in Tolleson, Arizona, outside Phoenix, in May 2020 to make curbside recyclable paper padded mailers, creating about 80 jobs.

Crédit Mutuel Equity became a minority reference shareholder with 25% of Paris-founded packaging maker Verpack in a leveraged buyout advised by Pax Corporate Finance, with Stéphane Viers becoming Chairman.

Vancouver-based packaging manufacturer Great Little Box Co announced its acquisition of custom packaging company Ideon Packaging. The companies plan to operate alongside each other in existing facilities while integrating long term.

Nippon Paper Industries completed its $1.72 billion acquisition of the Orora Fibre Businesses, which were combined with Australian Paper to form Opal, Australasia's newest fibre packaging and paper company. The launch was announced on 1 May 2020.

Corning and Pfizer announced a long-term, multiyear purchase and supply agreement for Corning Valor Glass vials for a portion of Pfizer's marketed drug products, pending regulatory approval. The release is dated 28 May 2020.

Sharpak, a food packaging manufacturer, set up a machine at its Aylesham factory to produce full face visors for NHS and care workers, with capacity of up to 50,000 visors per day. The company arranged to supply visors after testing in April 2020.

TriMas Corporation bought select bag-in-box assets from Liquibox, which is backed by Olympus Partners. The deal was reported on April 30, 2020.

Future Materials Sweden placed an order for two Scala machines to be installed at a new production site in Ljungby, Småland, for Dry Molded Fiber production, initially focusing on fiber-based snus cans.

Barry Callebaut engaged BEUMER to install a complete end-of-line packaging system at its Eddystone, Pennsylvania facility for cocoa powder bags, including conveying and bagging systems.

Actega is significantly expanding production of water-based and UV-cured overprint varnishes, raising global capacity to over 150,000 tonnes per year. About €2 million has been invested in a new integrated production facility in Brazil employing 180 people.

Chinese easy-open-end maker Guangdong Enpack Packaging plans to raise RMB 500 million (US$70.4 million) through a private share placement to fund facility upgrades and ten new production lines in Shantou.

Silgan Plastics plans a $15 million, 204,000-square-foot warehouse addition at its Seymour facility in Indiana. A Seymour Plan Commission vote approved the development plan, and the city council was to vote on rezoning.

SIG was selected as preferred partner to supply 15 aseptic filling machines for Hochwald's new greenfield UHT milk plant in Mechernich, Germany, with production planned from 2022. The plant will have capacity of more than 800 million litres of milk per year.

Stora Enso's Imatra mills in Finland decided to increase production capacity for extrusion-coated products and invest in a new automated roll warehouse alongside a new polyethylene coating plant. The investment integrates intermediate storage and logistics.

Xiamen Changsu has ordered two sequential film stretching lines from Brückner Maschinenbau for producing biaxially oriented polyamide (BOPA) films. The lines have a working width of over 7 meters and are scheduled to start up in Q4 2021.

thyssenkrupp's plant engineering business won a second order from Turkish packaging producer KÖKSAN to build a PET plant in Gaziantep, doubling site capacity to 432,000 tons per year, with completion planned for 2022.

Private equity investor CGS Management, through portfolio company EOL Packaging Experts, acquired a majority stake in BMS Maschinenfabrik of Pfatter, a maker of sorting systems and dry parts solutions. The deal was announced on 13 May 2020; no value was disclosed.

SIG Combibloc announced plans to invest in an extrusion coating line from ER-WE-PA, part of the Davis-Standard Group. The system is expected to be installed in 2020.

Segezha Packaging launched a third production line at its Salsk plant in Rostov Region, with an investment of 500 million rubles and capacity of 83 million units per year. The announcement was reported on 20 April 2020.

New-Indy Containerboard, a 50/50 joint venture of Kraft Group and Schwarz Partners, acquired Shoreline Container, which operates corrugated packaging and protective packaging facilities in Holland and Zeeland, Michigan.

French private equity firm Sparring Capital acquired a majority stake in Pure Trade, a French maker of luxury packaging and promotional products for cosmetics and fragrance. Initiative et Finance and Isatis Capital exited.

Dec Group acquired Inno4Life, a Netherlands-based provider of packaging and track-and-trace solutions for the life sciences sector. Terms were not disclosed.

Valmet will supply new reel and winding technology and surrounding equipment to modernize board machine KK 1 at Metsä Board's Kyro mill in Finland, with start-up scheduled for the second half of 2021. The order value was not disclosed.

Hua Xi Holdings disclosed that its subsidiary Shantou Xinda Color Printing Packaging Materials was named a preferred supplier to cigarette makers in Guangdong and Shanghai. The supply terms run through 2022 and 2021 respectively.

Zhengzhou VTOPS Machinery exported a three-set hand sanitizer high viscous liquid bottle filling machine system to an Australian daily necessities company. The order was placed on March 20, 2020 and delivered within 20 days.

Asahi Printing completed a pharmaceutical and cosmetics packaging factory in Kizugawa, Kyoto, built for about 6 billion yen next to an existing plant. It will start full operation within the month, alongside its Toyama site.

Sonoco is closing a recycled paperboard mill in Trent Valley, Ontario, which can take in 100,000 metric tons per year of recovered fiber. The closure was reported alongside its South Carolina investment in April 2020.

Sonoco will spend $83 million to retool operations in South Carolina and Wisconsin, converting a Hartsville, S.C. machine to uncoated recycled paperboard with about 180,000 tons per year capacity. The project starts late 2020 and is slated for early 2022.

Antares Vision has signed an agreement to purchase 82.83% of Tradeticity d.o.o., a Croatian software company specializing in traceability solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.

Indutrade acquired all shares in BL Products AB, Sweden, a packaging machinery seller and installer with annual sales of SEK 20 million. The company will become part of Indutrade's Industrial Components business area.

Stora Enso and Packages Ltd. completed the joint venture Bulleh Shah Packaging (Private) Limited, in which Stora Enso holds a 35% stake for about USD 39 million cash. The venture supplies packaging and paperboard products in Pakistan.

Gordon Brothers and New Mill Capital acquired the real property and machinery of Procter & Gamble's Kansas City, KS facility in a joint venture. The deal includes a leaseback to P&G for a smooth transition to a new facility.

Packaging machinery supplier Bobst acquired a 51% majority stake in Cito-System, a maker of creasing systems and tooling for the packaging industry, with Cito-System management keeping 49%.

Dongguan Hsinpu Paper Co installed a 2.8m Fosber Asia Pro/Line corrugator at its Dongguan plant, replacing two older 1.8m machines; the machine was commissioned on 30 June 2019.

Siam Cement will acquire Vietnamese packaging materials maker Bien Hoa Packaging through a joint venture with Japan's Rengo; deal size is yet to be determined, and Bien Hoa produces 90,000 tonnes of cardboard boxes a year.

Abbey Labels invested in a high-speed die-cutting module from MPS Systems for its flexo press, part of a £1.1m investment programme, and is expanding its facility by adding 3,500 sq ft to its existing building.