Alcoa sells packaging and consumer businesses

Aluminum giant Alcoa (AA-N) has sold its packaging and consumer businesses to New Zealand-based Rank Group Ltd.

Privately held by New Zealand’s richest man, Graeme Hart (worth over $2.1 billion), Rank Group Ltd. paid Alcoa US$2.5 billion in cash for the company’s packaging businesses.

Alcoa’s packaging and consumer businesses generated nearly 11% of the company’s revenue for 2007 and about 4.6% of Alcoa’s after-tax operating income last year. These businesses employ 9,300 people in 22 countries.

Alcoa, which hired Lehman Brothers as its financial adviser for the deal, will also see another US$200 million from Rank Group to be paid by April 2008, pending regulatory and other approvals.