Pact Group's chairman on $5 billion target: “I will wait”

Pact Group chairman Raphael Geminder is still focused on growing the packaging group into a $5 billion company – even if it takes 10 more years.

The company has made about 40 acquisitions – and wants to make more – but Geminder told Fairfax Media his plan was slowed down by the high cost of businesses in America and Europe.

"If you go to the European and US markets, the valuations for the businesses that we want to buy are too high,” he told Fairfax this week.

“We can't add the value that we need to add to make one and one equal two.

"That might change, but today the value is not there... so our focus is not currently on Europe and US expansion.

"[But] we have more than enough opportunity in the domestic market, and I'm talking about Australia and Asia."

Pact's acquisition trail started with a management buyout in 2001 of industrial packaging assets acquired by Visy from Southcorp.

Its latest purchases included waste and recycling bin maker Sulo, which it bought for $34.8 million in August 2014, and Barry Smorgon's Jalco, which it acquired for $80 million in June.

The acquisitions helped fuel a 17 per cent revenue jump to $1.25 billion last financial year, and Geminder told Pact shareholders at the company's annual meeting in St Kilda this month that he wanted to turn that into $5 billion in five years.

But he later told Fairfax he was not going to rush to meet or hold himself to a strict deadline.

"The biggest challenge for our leadership group is to keep this train on the track and not make any turns or moves that derail what is a very fast moving train. Don't underestimate how complicated that is," Geminder said.