Sonoco Acquires Cin-Made Packaging Group to Expand Rigid Paper Container Line

Hartsville, South Carolina, USA, 23 October 2006 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Sonoco (NYSE:SON), a global packaging company, has completed the acquisition of the assets and business of The Cin-Made Packaging Group, Inc., a privately held, specialty rigid paperboard composite container and large volumetric composite rectangular drum manufacturer, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Cin-Made was founded in 1902 and was purchased by Robert Frey in 1984. Today, Cin-Made designs and manufactures custom paper-based containers for a number of consumer product company brands serving the lawn and garden, food and beverage, personal care, pet products, and gourmet markets throughout North America. In addition, Cin-Made manufactures DorPak(R) rectangular composite drums, which are manufactured from 85% recycled rigid paperboard.

"Cin-Made provides an important strategic fit to Sonoco's industry leading rigid paper container portfolio," said Charles Sullivan, executive vice president of Consumer Packaging and Services. "We are excited to be a global producer of the popular DorPak drums. In addition to Cin-Made's existing DorPak customers, we believe this one-of-the-kind custom container will provide our global customers with an additional market-differentiating packaging solution."

About Sonoco

Founded in 1899, Sonoco is a USD 3.5 billion global manufacturer of industrial and consumer packaging products and provider of packaging services, with more than 300 operations in 35 countries, serving customers in 85 nations. Additional information about Sonoco is available at http://www.sonoco.com/.