Dive Brief:
- Sonoco announced Monday that it had reached an agreement to sell ThermoSafe, its temperature-assured packaging business, to private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners for up to $725 million.
- The purchase price consists of $650 million on a cash-free and debt-free basis payable at closing, and an additional consideration of up to $75 million if the business meets certain performance targets for calendar year 2025.
- A securities filing says the parties made the agreement Sept. 7, and the transaction is set for completion by the end of this year, pending customary regulatory review. Sonoco plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt, with an estimated net leverage ratio reduction to approximately 3.5x.
Dive Insight:
In 2024, Illinois-based ThermoSafe generated more than $240 million in sales and approximately $50 million in proforma adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It has approximately 900 employees globally.
“With the planned sale of ThermoSafe, we are completing the next step in Sonoco’s portfolio transformation, which has resulted in significantly streamlining our operations,” said CEO Howard Coker in a Sept. 8 statement. “Sonoco is proud of what we have accomplished in building ThermoSafe into one of the industry’s leading players while more than doubling revenues since 2012 and substantially improving technology and product offerings serving our customers’ ever-changing needs.”
Sonoco’s long-anticipated divestiture comes amid nearly two years of change for the company. It announced plans to sell ThermoSafe in June 2024, at the same time it announced plans to acquire Switzerland-based metal packaging company Eviosys from KPS Capital Partners. That $3.8 billion deal closed in December 2024, and the ThermoSafe sale is a way to offset the cost.
Executives announced in February 2025, on their first earnings call following the Eviosys acquisition, that their attention would turn to selling ThermoSafe by year’s end. Executives noted ThermoSafe’s recently soft sales volumes, although changes within the GLP-1 drugs market — a drug category that must be refrigerated — were expected to give the temperature-controlled packaging company a boost.
Sonoco has undergone a period of significant change and restructuring. Executives announced during the February 2024 earnings call that the company had integrated its flexible packaging and thermoforming business units into the consumer packaging segment to streamline operations and accelerate growth. The following week during an investor day event, they detailed Sonoco’s desire to focus on fewer, bigger businesses, and they projected that the company would be 75% focused on the consumer segment by 2028.
Executives also stated the intention to divest more businesses as part of the portfolio simplification strategy. That optimization included Sonoco selling its protective solutions packaging business to alternative asset management firm Black Diamond Capital Management for $80 million in cash.
In addition, Sonoco announced its restructuring to create four core businesses: metal packaging, industrial packaging, flex-therm and rigid paper containers. And in December 2024, Sonoco announced it would sell its Thermoformed and Flexibles Packaging business to Japan-based Toppan Holdings for $1.8 billion, a transaction that they completed in April 2025.
Sonoco’s leadership also has undergone some shakeups in 2025. In June, the company announced Paul Joachimczyk is the new CFO, replacing Rob Dillard, who departed in January. Also in June, Sonoco announced that Chief Operating Officer Rodger Fuller would take on additional duties as interim CEO at Sonoco Metal Packaging EMEA, formerly Eviosys, following the death of Tomás López.
Arsenal Capital, which focuses on industrials and healthcare companies, already has delved into packaging. In 2019, it acquired Clariant's healthcare packaging business, which it rebranded as Airnov Healthcare Packaging. It has also invested in numerous materials, coatings, colorants and adhesives companies.
