Spain's Saica Group buys Germany's Thimm in European packaging consolidation play
What's the deal? Saica Group, one of Europe's largest paper and packaging manufacturers, is acquiring Thimm Group, a German corrugated packaging and display solutions provider. The Thimm family, which founded the company in 1949, will fully exit the business. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Thimm generated revenues of roughly €539M in 2024 and employs around 2,500 people across Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Saica, headquartered in Zaragoza, Spain, posted revenues of about €3.96B in 2025 with more than 12,000 employees and 112 sites across western Europe, Poland, and the US.
Why now? Both companies are family-owned and have maintained a close partnership since the late 1990s, including a strategic sales alliance and a joint venture in Poland. Thimm's board chairman Mathias Schliep said the company spent recent months considering how to position itself for the long term after two years of business consolidation.
"We are convinced that in a highly competitive market, only a small number of large players will be able to gain market share in the future," Schliep said.
The deal gives Saica a foothold in Germany and eastern Europe — markets where it has not previously operated. Thimm produces 1.2 billion square metres of corrugated board packaging annually.
What could go wrong? The transaction still requires approval from relevant antitrust authorities. Integrating two family-run businesses across multiple countries always carries execution risk, even when the cultures align. Schliep acknowledged the decision "has not been easy for the families."
The signal: This deal reflects an accelerating wave of consolidation in European industrial packaging. As margins tighten in a cyclical, commodity-driven business, scale matters more than ever — and Saica's move to fill its biggest geographic gap, in Germany and eastern Europe, underscores that pan-European coverage is now table stakes for market leaders. Expect more mid-sized, family-owned packaging firms to face the same strategic calculus Thimm confronted: merge into a larger platform, or risk losing ground to competitors with broader reach and deeper investment capacity.
Read more: saica.com
