Ardagh have announced plans to invest $71M at its Winchester, Indiana (USA plant. The money will be spent on making improvements to the 78-year-old facility, which employs around 400 people. The upgrades will be made over three years and be aided by incentives from state and area economic development groups. "This level of investment in a single glass-manufacturing facility in such a brief period of time is unprecedented for Ardagh Group and extremely rare in our industry," said John Riordan, CEO of Ardagh Group Glass North America. Built in 1937, the facility specialises in manufacturing glass containers for the food and spirits markets. The plant was formerly owned by Anchor Glass Container Corp before Ardagh purchased it for some US$ 880M in 2012. Incentive agreements for the project include a US$ 6.1M tax abatement over 10 years from the city of Winchester and a grant of US$ 300,000 for local equipment purchases and training of employees associated with the project from the Randolph Economic Development Corporation. In addition, the Indiana Economic Development Corp has offered up to US$1M in conditional tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants, according to Ardagh.
