The company said that it had been in negotiations with several possible purchasers of the Superfos Pharma Pack unit, but none of them "were able to match our expectations to future strategies, as well as Superfos' value expectations."
Superfos Pharma Pack makes plastic containers and closures for the pharmaceutical industry, including the Duma and Dudek ranges of containers, and recently launched a new product designed to be easier to open by patients with reduced physical function, such as those with arthritis.
Eight months ago, its parent decided that because pharma contributed only 6 per cent of consolidated revenues of €352 million last year, and served a completely different customer base than its core food and industrial businesses, it would fulfil its potential better in other hands.
Aside from the failure to find a buyer prepared to meet Superfos' price tag for the business, the company said that its volte-face on pharma has been driven in part by the growth in the business over the last six months.
Superfos said that pharma revenues had risen by 25 per cent in the first half of this year, outstripping its ability to supply the demand and creating 'unacceptable' delays in deliveries to customers. As a result, the company has invested in a new building at its Vaerlose site in Denmark that has hiked its facilities by 60 per cent, but it sees no return to normal delivery times until the end of the third quarter of this year.
The company - which has shortened its name to Superfos Pharma - said that some of its products have doubled their turnover compared with the prior year, with others increasing five- or ten-fold.
Niels Düring will continue to serve as CEO of the pharma unit, reporting directly to Superfos CEO Kim Andersen.
One of the companies rumoured to be interested in buying Superfos Pharma Pack was UK packaging giant Rexam, which has a stated ambition of growing its activities in the pharma sector. Rexam bought Superfos' thermoformed table packaging business, which has an annual turnover of €11 million, at the end of October.