Premium Beauty News – What were your feelings concerning the sector when you arrived a few months ago?

Thomas Jonas Contrarily to what you might have thought, the sector was in a good shape.

Concerning the pump activity in 2008, it is true we had to deal with tensions regarding price increases in plastic raw materials, but finally the end market reacted well.

As you also know we had the opportunity to acquire the company of Dutch origin, Keltec, specialized in the manufacturing of airless systems. The extremely clever patents developed by Keltec strengthens our leadership versus prestigious partners in the healthcare industry.

Not to mention very promising developments in the perfume pumps like the Clikit IP a resin injected version of our Melodie Clikit pump. Clikit IP was created to give high-end perfume brands a high performance pump, offering new possibilities for decoration of dressing parts. We are also capable of offering a level of decoration that did not exist on the market before.
Our goal is to help our customers win on their markets thanks to this kind of differentiation.

Premium Beauty News - But you have also inherited of the cardboard transformation activity …

Thomas Jonas That is true! A sector where we have started important restructuration keeping our production tool in one plant in the United states but maintaining and reinforcing our factories in Central Europe, Brazil and China. It is a sector of activity in which we believe even if it encounters the same economic difficulties as the others presently.

But due to the fact we are established, in high growth countries like the ones in Central Europe, we can only be confident in our potential for the sector.

Premium Beauty News - Speaking of high growth countries, MWV is also established in Asia.

Thomas Jonas Yes, thanks to a factory located near Shanghai where we are centralizing pump manufacturing and cardboard transformation. There also, we are very ambitious. Which does not mean we are favoring a area of the world and not another one: we wish to be where our customers are wherever they are, in order to accompany them in their growth. And even if the United States and Europe suffer more today in comparison with other parts of the world, we are not in the state of mind consisting in making a strategic choice of a geographic area versus another. We will strive the same way from one side of the planet to the other.

Premium Beauty News – We cannot avoid a question on environment.

Thomas Jonas Absolutely! We feel strongly about environment here at MWV and we are proud to have been ranked, three years in a row by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, first company in the Containers & Packaging Groups category.

Environment is a strategic axe of our industrial policy but also of our policy in terms of innovation. No doubt, the coming months will bring quite a few good surprises regarding this last subject.