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Ball Corporation (BLL) Divests Paint and General Line Plant

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Beverage can maker Ball Corporation announced the sale of its paint and general line can manufacturing facility in Hubbard, OH, to U.S.-based BWAY Corporation. Ball Corporation divested the facility to focus on generating positive EVA (Economic Value Added) dollars and maximize value in its core businesses.

Ball Corporation had acquired the Hubbard plant in 2006 as part of the company's acquisition of the U.S. Can Corporation. The plant has 70 employees, and manufactures a variety of tinplate paint and general line cans.

The Hubbard plant divestiture is in sync with Ball Corporation’s strategy to deliver earnings per share growth of 10–15% per annum over the long term, maximize free cash flow generation and increase EVA dollars.

Further, Ball Corporation’s Food and Aerosol Packaging segment, which manufactures, and sells paint and general line containers, has been witnessing declining sales for the past three years.

In order to better align with its strategic focus on food and aerosol packaging business, the company announced the closure of its food and aerosol packaging flat sheet production and end-making facility in Weirton, WV, in first-quarter 2016. In Oct 2016, Ball Corporation sold its specialty tin manufacturing facility in Baltimore, MD.

Ball Corporation believes that these initiatives will improve production efficiencies of its food and aerosol packaging segment in second-quarter 2017, and be conducive to full-year 2017 results.

Ball Corporation underperformed the Zacks classified Containers- Metal/ Glass sub-industry with respect to price performance over the past one year, primarily due to prolonged weakness at the end-market level for carbonated soft drinks, beer and food. The stock gained around 3.8%, while the industry recorded 12% growth.



Ball Corporation currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Better-ranked stocks in the same space include ACCO Brands Corporation (ACCO - Free Report) , Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (CWST - Free Report) and Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP - Free Report) . All three stocks flaunt a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

ACCO Brands Corporation has an average positive earnings surprise of 24.74% for the trailing four quarters. Casella Waste Systems has a remarkable average earnings surprise of 165.21% for the last four quarters, while Roper Technologies has an average earnings surprise of 0.92% for the same time period.

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