With estimated sales of nearly $2 billion and growing, the Latin American ink market is a lucrative opportunity for ink manufacturers. It is no surprise they ink companies are investing in the region.
 
Printers are certainly active in the region. Virtually all multi-national printers have operations in Latin America.
 
In 2015, Crown Holdings, Inc. completed its acquisition of EMPAQUE, a leading Mexican manufacturer of aluminum cans and ends, bottle caps and glass bottles for the beverage industry, from Heineken N.V., and added a new beverage can plant in Monterrey, Mexico. Ball Corporation is also building a new beverage can plant in Monterrey, Mexico.
 
In flexible packaging, Amcor acquired Souza Cruz’s internal tobacco packaging operations in Brazil for approximately US $30 million, while Sonoco announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in Graffo Paranaense de Embalagens S/A (Graffo), a flexible packaging business located in Pinhais, Curitiba, Brazil.

Ink manufacturers are also active. In December 2014, ALTANA acquired two companies in São Paulo, Brazil: Premiata, which operates two facilities under the name of Premiata Tintas and Premiata Especialidades Químicas, specializes, respectively, in printing inks and coatings for the packaging industry with 140 employees. Overlake is an overprint varnishes specialist with 70 employees at one site.
 
“Through these acquisitions we are systematically expanding our business in the growing Brazilian market,” said Martin Babilas, member of the Management Board of ALTANA AG.
 
Antonio Blanco, hubergroup’s director of sales for Central and South America, said that hubergroup is continuously investing in LATAM countries with promising economical prognosis.
 
“In 2014, we opened hubergroup Colombia SAS, based in Bogota, and at the end of the same year we bought a competitor, also in Bogota, who specialized in ink manufacturing for the packaging industry,” Blanco noted. “From Colombia we will be able to serve countries like Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. In Chile, we built and opened a new plant where we produce solvent-based inks to serve the solvent inks market in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. Other projects are planned but are not yet public.”
 
Sun Chemical reinforced its commitment to customers in Latin America in 2015 with the opening of six color centers located throughout the region, including San Salvador, El Salvador; Mexico City, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; Lima, Peru; São Paulo, Brazil and Santiago, Chile.
 
“It is our hope that these new color centers will build the foundation for customers in the region to implement a digitally color managed workflow,” said Fernando Tavara, president, Sun Chemical Latin America. “The addition of the color centers follows the completion of the acquisition of Tintas, which was previously a 50/50 joint venture in the Andean Region (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela). We’ve also made significant investments in mills and new capacity throughout all the region in the past year.”
 
On Dec. 13, 2013, Flint Group announced the purchase of Tintas Graficas Vencedor (TGV) based in Lima, Peru. This acquisition provides Flint Group with the ability to build market position in the liquid packaging film and foil and water-based ink market in Latin America’s Andean region. It also gives Flint Group the opportunity to further grow narrow web and plate sales in this region along with sheetfed packaging inks.
 
“TGV, now Flint Group Peru, will fit our regional strategy to grow packaging inks in LATAM and provides us with a manufacturing structure to service global and local customers in the Andes region,” said Adhemur Pilar, president Flint Group Latin America. “Personnel wise, an important change within LATAM has been the retirement of Ricardo Guzman in December 2014, after 13 years of valued service as general manager for Mexico. We welcomed Gerardo Orta to Flint Group to take over the reins from Ricardo as general director of Mexico. In November 2014 we welcomed Fabio Ribeiro to Flint Group as business director narrow web LATAM. We are confident that with these key new additions, we will continue to grow and improve our Latin American business.”
 
Toyo Ink has been active, adding a new ink manufacturing site in Brazil as well as new product lines.
 
“In June 2014, Toyo Ink Brasil completed the construction of an offset sheetfed and gravure plant at its Jundiai site in Sao Paulo State. Gravure production began here in April 2015,” Yu Adachi of Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co., Ltd.’s corporate communication department said. “The plant is expected to meet the demand for commercial and promotional printing and, of course, provide high-quality, high-performance food packaging technology to the domestic and extended markets. The Jundiai plant has already begun exporting to all countries in South America, and we expect to cover all territories with new developments we have made, such as 100% vegetable-oil inks suitable for food packaging, while exploring Mercosur advantages for export.
 
“Earlier this year in Brazil, the Toyo Ink Group introduced a line of can coatings and metal decorative inks for primarily the beverage market,” Adachi added. “Toyo’s metal and can coating materials have an outstanding track record in terms of quality and reliability, having already secured a large share of markets in Asia. Toyo Ink has now brought this technology to Brazil and is working to expand its presence in the beverage can industry throughout the region.”