The Commerce Commission has cleared Visy Industrial Plastic (NZ) Limited (Visy Industrial), or an interconnected body corporate, to acquire either all of the issued shares in Alto Holdings Limited (Alto) or the entire plastic packaging business and assets of Alto and any of its subsidiaries.

Commission Chair Paula Rebstock said that the Commission was satisfied that the proposed acquisition would not have, or would not be likely to have, the effect of substantially lessening competition in any of the relevant markets.

Visy Industrial is a direct subsidiary of Australian company Salvage Pty Ltd. The Commission has previously determined that Visy Industrial is associated with Pratt Holdings Pty Ltd, trading as VisyPak.

Visy Industrial manufactures and supplies a range of packaging alternatives. VisyPak manufactures and supplies Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) beverage containers including soft drink bottles, aluminium cans, carton systems and filing equipment.

Alto manufactures and supplies PET bottles, rigid plastic non-beverage containers, closures and extruded sheet and thermoformed plastic containers.

A public version of the written decision will shortly be available on the Commission's website www.comcom.govt.nz under the Clearances Register.