Oji Holding has picked up a majority of 80% shares in Empire, which has a plant in Punjab which has approximately 300 employees, total assets pegged at Rs 0.8-billion (FYE 2021) and Rs 1.0-billion in sales revenue (FYI 2021).

Oji Group’s subsidiary in India, Oji India Packaging has three plants in India, namely at, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu which manufactures corrugated boxes, corrugated sheet boards, paper pallets, while Empire has a strong customer base in the Northern Delhi area.

According to an Oji statement, the company is now poised to expand the corrugated container business in India further, but leveraging the Empire relationship in other areas. While Oji had stopped manufacturing heavy-duty packaging material in the Uttar Pradesh plant in June 2021, consolidating it to the existing plant in Rajasthan, with the Empire acquisition, Oji Group now has 35 corrugation packaging manufacturing plants in South East Asia and Oceania.

Anil Gulati, managing director of Empire Packages, said, Oji was looking for a partner that keeps innovation and environmental sustainability at its core. “We look forward to working with Oji with renewed confidence and excitement. We will enable companies to switch from plastic dominated packaging to fully sustainable paper-based packaging.”