Silgan Holdings, a supplier of rigid packaging for shelf-stable food and other consumer goods, will acquire closure manufacturer Portola Packaging for a purchase price of $266 million.

Portola had sales of approximately $200 million in 2012 and operates eight facilities in North America and Europe. Silgan's closures business had net sales of $680.1 million in 2012.

Earlier this year, Portola Packaging announced a $12 million capital expenditure in its Kingsport, TN and Tolleson, AZ facilities. The company said the investment was made to accommodate growing market demand for its hot-fill and aseptic beverage closures and increased dairy business market share.

Glenn Fish, chief financial officer for Portola, told PlasticsToday the expenditure built on top of an overall larger capital investment the company has embarked on for the past three years, which has helped Portola grow its beverage closure volume by double-digit percentages annually.

The company said that manufacturing and quality initiatives, coupled with new stock and custom closures for tamper evident, aseptic and extended shelf-life applications are responsible for part of the growth, particularly in the juice, dairy and specialty beverage market segments.

In addition, there were infrastructure replacements and upgrades at the company's TN and AZ facilities.

In 2012, Portola shut down its cosmetics closures business, which represented less than 10% of sales for the company. 

"We believe that the acquisition of Portola broadens our global closure franchise," said Bob Lewis, executive VP and CFO of Silgan, in a news release. "Portola has a strong reputation as an innovator in closure design and operational leadership. As a result, we believe this acquisition will be highly synergistic with our existing closure business, while providing a broader platform to service our customers' market needs."

Lewis went on to say that the company is excited about the opportunity to expand its "relatively small European plastic closure presence" through Portola's manufacturing facilities in the United Kingdom and Czech Republic.

Silgan Holdings is a supplier of rigid packaging for shelf-stable food and other consumer goods products with annual net sales of approximately $3.6 billion in 2012. Silgan operates 81 manufacturing facilities in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

The company is also a supplier of metal containers in North America and Europe, and a worldwide supplier of metal, composite and plastic vacuum closures for food and beverage products.

The transaction is expected to close as early as September 2013.