The story
Klöckner Pentaplast was originally founded in 1965 as a subsidiary of Klöckner-Werke AG in Montabaur, Germany, in the course of the establishment of the plastics industry in the 1960s. Its first production facility outside Germany was opened in 1979 in Gordonsville, Virginia, United States.
In 1996, Klöckner Pentaplast and Kalle Hartfolien GmbH, a subsidiary of Hoechst AG, formed a joint venture under the name of Kalle Pentaplast GmbH, making rigid plastic films. When Klöckner-Werke AG acquired Höchst AG's share in Kalle Pentaplast in 1998, the company was renamed back to Klöckner Pentaplast.
The company was sold in 2001 to a partnership between Cinven and JP Morgan. In 2007 it was purchased by the Blackstone Group. In June 2012, a group of investors under the leadership of Strategic Value Partners (SVP) acquired Klöckner Pentaplast from Blackstone.
In 2025, the company filed for a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a restructuring plan to eliminate the majority of its $1.5 billion debt. After eliminating the vast majority of its debt, the company emerged from bankruptcy in February 2026.
From Wikipedia’s article on Klöckner Pentaplast, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5