- EPL is the world’s largest manufacturer of laminated plastic tubes - the squeezable packaging that holds toothpaste, face cream, ointments and gels - supplying over 9 billion tubes a year from 21 factories across 11 countries. Founded in 1982 as Essel Packaging with a single plant in Vasind, India, it grew by acquiring a Swiss tube business in 2001 and was itself bought by Blackstone in 2019, rebranding as EPL. The recurring approach is to lock in global consumer-goods giants with long-term contracts, then use the steady cash flows to build the next capability - backward integration into making its own laminate sheets, a widening portfolio of recyclable tubes, and a deliberate shift from oral care into higher-margin beauty and pharmaceutical packaging.
Business segments
Four geographic engines, each a regional tube-making and selling operation - AMESA, Americas, Europe and East Asia Pacific - that together form a single global packaging business built on the same product, the same customers and the same manufacturing playbook.
1. AMESA: the anchor region where the company makes its own raw material
India and Egypt house nine plants and the group’s laminate-sheet factories, so this region supplies both finished tubes to local customers and semi-finished laminate to other EPL regions.
- Backward-integrated from the start - the Indian plants buy polymer granules (LLDPE and HDPE, both crude-oil derivatives), extrude them into plastic film, laminate the film into multi-layer sheets, then supply those sheets to other plants which convert them into printed tubes. That eliminates a middleman and gives the region a structural cost advantage over competitors who buy ready-made laminate.
- The laminate hub for the group - film produced in India and China is dynamically allocated to other EPL regions, so AMESA’s factories do not just serve their own customers; they feed the global network.
- Oral care is the bedrock, but beauty is catching up - India still sells heavily into toothpaste, yet the region is also where EPL first built in-house cap manufacturing as a cost-containment move, a capability that now supports the higher-margin beauty and pharma segments.
2. Americas: the local supplier shielded from tariffs
Four plants in the USA, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil make tubes inside the trade borders of their biggest customers, so most revenue never crosses a customs line.
- Made in the USA, for the USA - the American factory supplies the US market directly; less than 5% of EPL’s total revenue is exported into the US, insulating the business from tariff swings. Where duties do apply, contracts with most customers pass the cost straight through.
- Brazil is the growth engine - a greenfield plant built to serve an anchor customer now meets 100% of that customer’s demand and has already won orders from other multinationals and local brands, running high-speed SMART tube lines. The ramp-up is ahead of plan, and EPL calls itself the only strategic global tube supplier in the country.
- Colombia and Mexico round out the footprint - the Colombian operation was reorganised in 2022 when a legacy subsidiary was liquidated, but tube-making continues through the existing entity. Together the four Americas plants employ about 900 people.
3. Europe: the beauty-market beachhead with a cost turnaround
Three plants in Poland and Germany target the world’s largest beauty and cosmetics market, where EPL holds single-digit share and has been restructuring to earn mid-teen margins.
- Shifted production east to cut costs - manufacturing was moved from high-cost Germany to Poland, where labour is cheaper and the plant runs seven days a week instead of five, unlocking 40% more capacity from the same assets. Headcount was reduced and the organisation streamlined alongside the physical move.
- Extruded as well as laminated - the European units make both laminated and extruded plastic tubes, giving them a product range that matches local demand in beauty and pharma.
- A small share of a very large pie - Europe is the biggest beauty and cosmetics market globally, and EPL’s single-digit position means the region is treated as a growth opportunity rather than a mature cash cow. A sales office in the UK supports the continental factories.
4. East Asia Pacific: the China-anchored platform now expanding south
Five factories in China and one in the Philippines supply the Asia-Pacific consumer market, with a new greenfield plant in Thailand that started shipping in late 2025.
- China and India both manufacture films - the company dynamically manages film production allocation between the two countries to optimise cost and supply routes.
- Thailand opens a new front - a wholly-owned subsidiary incorporated in February 2025 began customer supplies during the third quarter of the fiscal year, extending EPL’s manufacturing reach into Southeast Asia beyond the Philippine base.
- Export bridge to Australia - the region also serves Australia through exports, adding volume without requiring a dedicated factory. The EAP region employs about 1,000 people.
Group structure and partners
EPL is an Indian-listed company controlled by a Blackstone fund, soon to become a co-promoted entity with Indorama Ventures through a merger that will add rigid PET packaging to the tube business.
- Blackstone brought scale and the EPL name - Blackstone Inc. acquired the company (then Essel Propack) in 2020 through Epsilon Bidco Pte. Ltd., which held roughly 75% at the time; the business was rebranded EPL in 2020.
- Indorama is becoming a co-promoter - in May 2025, Epsilon Bidco sold a 24.9% stake to Indorama Netherlands B.V., leaving Blackstone with 26.4% and Indorama with 24.9%. The two shareholders are now bringing Indorama’s Indian rigid-packaging subsidiary (Indovida, which makes PET preforms, bottles and closures) into EPL via a scheme of amalgamation approved by the board in March 2026.
- The merged entity will be a packaging powerhouse - pro-forma revenue across the combined group is INR 83.8 billion, with 40 factories in 17 countries and roughly three-quarters of revenue from emerging markets. Post-merger, Indorama Ventures will hold 51.8% and Blackstone 16.6%, and the Competition Commission of India has already cleared the deal.
- Earlier acquisitions were folded in - EPL bought a 72.46% stake in Creative Stylo Packs (an Indian maker of corrugated boxes, laminated tubes and caps) in 2021 and amalgamated it in 2022, adding complementary capacity in personal-care and pharma packaging.
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