Alpha Packaging announced today that it has acquired Technigraph Corporation of Winona, Minnesota. Technigraph is a leading decorator of bottles and jars for the personal care, cosmetics, food and industrial products industries, specializing in high-end, multi-color screen printing. Technigraph prints on a wide variety of container shapes, sizes and materials, including the most common types of plastic, glass and metal packaging.

Alpha Packaging is a $100 million blow molder of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and jars for the personal care, pharmaceutical, nutritional supplement, and niche food and beverage markets. In addition to manufacturing, Alpha offers in-house package design services, mold-making and custom tooling.

According to Dave Spence, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alpha Packaging, the two companies share many of the same customers and a common philosophy for serving them. “We’ve worked with Technigraph on many projects in the past, and as an organization, they have always done an excellent job of taking care of the customer,” Spence says. “We have that same philosophy at Alpha, so as more of our business moves toward the personal care market, we saw great synergies with bringing Technigraph’s decorating skills to Alpha. We believe Technigraph represents best-in-class decorating in our industry, with service to match.”

Technigraph will operate as an independent business unit of Alpha Packaging, with its existing management and employees continuing to serve its current customer base. They will also be able to serve new customers who buy bottles and jars from Alpha and want to benefit from the one-stop decorating services. Customers of Alpha/Technigraph can choose between or combine screen print, pressure sensitive labels, roll stamp, pad print, frosts, textures, thermo chromatics, doming effects and others, and Technigraph will continue to decorate on many substrates, including materials Alpha does not manufacture.

John Eddy, co-owner of Technigraph, agrees that the strengths of the two companies will bring substantial value to customers. “We are excited about the possibilities this transaction presents for our customers, employees and stakeholders,” he says. “The combined company is better positioned to compete in the marketplace by offering a wider range of services, products and innovation. We’re all very enthusiastic about the future continued success of two fine organizations.”

Dan Creston, Chief Operating Officer of Alpha Packaging, says Alpha’s acquisition strategy is to identify well-run companies with good balance sheets that can immediately contribute to Alpha’s continued growth. “Over the past decade, Alpha has grown at double-digit rates even though the plastic packaging industry has not grown that fast,” Creston says. “To continue that type of growth, we’ve got to continue to invest in new technologies that expand the scope of products and services we offer to our key markets.” Creston adds that virtually all of the bottles Alpha makes are decorated or labeled before consumers buy them, so offering decorating services is a logical extension of Alpha’s core business.

Chuck Eddy, co-owner of Technigraph, agrees. “Over the years, Technigraph’s focus has been to provide great value, quality and service. Combining Alpha Packaging and Technigraph allows us to maintain these core values while adding relevant capabilities and related joint services to the industry,” he says. “I think our customers will welcome a fresh, new, consolidated source for both the substrate and the graphics. Two leaders in their respective areas, together as a single source: It just makes sense,” he says.

Alpha has been fueling growth through several acquisitions over the past three years, and also benefitting from organic growth. In January 2005, Alpha entered into a financial partnership with Stonebridge Partners, a private equity firm in White Plains, New York. The move was intended to provide capital investment dollars to fuel Alpha’s continued growth in the plastic packaging marketplace. The Technigraph acquisition is the third major purchase for Alpha since becoming a Stonebridge portfolio company. In 2007, Alpha was ranked as the 31st largest blow molder of plastic bottles and jars in North America according to Plastics News.

About Alpha Packaging:
Alpha Packaging is a leading manufacturer of HDPE and polyethylene PET bottles and jars for the nutritional supplement, pharmaceutical, personal care, and niche food and beverage industries. It also makes bottles from low-density polyethylene, clarified polypropylene and NatureWorks PLA (polylactide), a corn-based bioresin. In 2006, Alpha expanded its East Coast manufacturing presence by tripling the size of its Pennsylvania plant, and in 2007 it opened a new 120,000 square foot manufacturing plant and stocking facility in Florida and purchased Quality Container, an extrusion blow molder of HDPE bottles and jars.

Alpha employs about 400 people at five manufacturing facilities in St. Louis, Bethlehem, Pa., Jacksonville, Fl., Salt Lake City, Ut., and Ypsilanti, Mich. Alpha’s sales force sells its products through leading domestic distributors, and also maintains a network of international distributors in key markets. The current management team has been in place since 1985. For additional information, visit www.alphap.com.

About Technigraph Corporation:
Technigraph was founded in 1950 as a screen-printing company primarily designing and screening point of purchase displays and in 1958, it began printing on glass bottles at the request of a customer. From these small beginnings, Technigraph developed a focus on personal care, cosmetic, food, and industrial packaging and expanded to other substrates as plastic packaging replaced glass as consumers’ material of choice. Technigraph employs about 100 people at its Winona facility, occupying over 135,000 square feet and producing on over 40 individual decorating lines. For additional information, visit www.technigraph.net.

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