“On May 7, Air Water (AWI) agreed to accept the assignment of all shares of Nichiro Sunpack Corporation which is engaged in producing, processing and selling soft and fruit juice drinks.

The date of share assignment was announced to be June 1, but no information of buyout price has been disclosed yet. Positioning the agri-food business as an important and strategic field, AWI bought up Gold-Pak of beverage manufacturer in September of last year.

Affiliating Nichiro Sunpack which has plants in Hokkaido and Aomori, AWI expects a new business synergy in production and sales of beverage with the Gold-Pak which has plants in Nagano Prefecture.

Nichiro Sunpack having 92 employees is headquartered in Hokkaido and has a plant in Aomori Prefecture. The latest result of sales amounts to 6.352 billion yen, ordinary profit to 83 million yen and net income for the term to 90 million yen (ending March FY2012). Owing to the acquisition, AWI’s soft-drink business has attained a scale of approx. 47billion yen, and is expected to be the third-place company enjoying a 5.5% market share in the domestic beverage production and marketing industries.

AWI also expects to create another synergy with the industrial gas business dealing with carbonated beverage and nitrogen for degassing or quality preservation after expanding the food business in the Hokkaido district.

The acquisition at this time is estimated to enhance the agri-food business scale up to a 70 billion yen level, which has stepped up its position to third largest business line following the industrial gas and chemical/medical business.”