Colorpak creates Australia’s largest folding cartons plant

Colorpak will consolidate its Melbourne operations and create the "largest and most modern" folding cartons plant in Australia.

The company announced today it would close its ageing Mt Waverley plant and transfer operations to the "recently expanded, modern and more efficient Braeside facility nearby".

The Melbourne rationalisation, which follows a similar integration in Sydney, is expected to involve $2.4 million of one-off costs and be completed by April 2014. The efficiencies generated are forecast to pay for the project by April 2015.

Managing director Alex Commins told ProPrint that Braeside would have more than 400 staff spread over three buildings.

"It will be turning over in the order of $90 million of folding cartons per annum, and as far as I know there's no other site in Australia that would be that large," he said.

Mt Waverley dates from about 1950, while Braeside started as a greenfield facility in 1996 and was upgraded as recently as 2012, he said.

[Related: Commins makes ProPrint Power 50]

Commins said most of Mt Waverley's machinery would be transferred to Braeside, and that it would be joined by a new six-colour Roland 700 press that would be commissioned later this year.

This "final plant rationalisation" will leave Colorpak with three facilities: supersites in Melbourne and Sydney and a smaller factory in Auckland.

"Pre-rationalisation, when we acquired [Carter Holt Harvey] in March 2011, we had three factories in Victoria, essentially three factories in New South Wales – although one of them was immediately on-sold by Carters to Amcor – and one site in New Zealand," Commins told ProPrint.

"We've gone from a headcount of about 820 and at the moment it's about 670. We've also significantly reduced the occupancy footprint of the business, all of which puts the business on a very strong and sustainable growth platform."

Commins said the efficiencies generated by the rationalisations had allowed Colorpak to retire debt and reinvest in new machinery.

He also said redundancies at Mt Waverley were still being finalised, but that it was expected about a dozen of the 130 staff would be laid off.

Colorpak's 2012-13 results will be released on 5 August. The company posted a $7.7 million underlying profit in 2011-12.

[Related: More Victorian news]

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