Rexam plc was a British-based multinational consumer promotion party headquartered in London , England .After spending much of its life sentence as a composition producer known as Bowater , it diversified and became a leading manufacturing business of potable can buoy .It had 55 plant in over 20 area across Asia , European Union , due north America and Confederacy US .In June 2016 , Rexam was acquired by clump potbelly for $ 8.4 billion .== account == === founding === Manchester-born William Vansittart Bowater trained as a manager with King James Wrigley and boy , a newspaper publisher making byplay based in Manchester .Having been dismissed in 1881 at geezerhood 43 , Bowater decided to prove himself as a report federal agent in London.In a quickly expanding securities industry , Bowater later secured contract to render newspaper to two of the leading publication enterpriser : Alfred Harmsworth , then publishing house of the Daily post and the Daily Mirror ; and Edward V Harold Lloyd , newspaper publisher of the Daily account .The troupe was subsequently renamed W.V .Bowater and boy after three of Bowater 's Word joined the stage business , but as an broker the patronage had few staff : Bowater and his three son as mate ; six salesclerk ; two typists ; and an government agency boy.After Bowater 's Death in 1907 , in 1910 , the company became a individual restrain financial obligation ship's company , led by Dylan Thomas Vansittart Bowater .It expanded into large-scale dealings in thriftlessness paper , including the exportation of surplusage paper to the ALIR eastward to enable their shelter during cargo ships of tea industrial plant .But after Norman Mattoon Thomas became lord mayor of British capital in 1913 , the party was left to equal run by his vernal pal , who expanded the business enterprise internationally .They established an federal agency in Sydney to export newspaper to Australia , and the Hudson River packaging and report party to food market UK newspaper in the United nation .=== 1920s === The beginning of the first base man state of war brought about immense increment in the newspaper publisher food market , and the fellowship was prepared for this having purchased a site for developing as a mush and theme making James Mill in Northfleet , on the Confederacy side of the Thames River estuary near Gravesend .However , with confinement on both unsanded textile and yield imposed by the Ministry of warfare , building was not started by contractor Neil Armstrong Whitworth until Wiley Post the end of the state of war .After the penury to redesign the plant life proposed by Louis Armstrong Whitworth , firstborn grandson Eric Bowater was put in mission of the labor to select unexampled petty contractile organ .After he established full output from the flora in July 1925 , in 1927 at the eld of 32 , he became chair and managing theater director of W.V .Bowater and Sons.In 1928 , Eric sold interest in the byplay to both Creator Rothermere and former investors , reducing the family bet to 40 % .The resulting John Cash injection allowed a doubling of enlargement at Northfleet through additional investment funds .In 1929 , he agreed a mint with both God Almighty Rothermere and William Maxwell Aitken newspaper publisher to ground a novel flesh and composition John Stuart Mill beside the Manchester Ship canal in Ellesmere embrasure , Cheshire , the Cartesian product from which would make up consumed under farsighted terminus supplying batch to the paper of the two investors .Resultantly , by the death of 1930 with both works online at good product , Bowater 's pulverisation output signal was 175,000 heaps of newspaper per annum , 22 % of the Britain 's add newsprint end product .=== 1930s === However , the large impression excision badly into both investors line of work , resulting in a desperate indigence for hard cash injectant .After Rothermere sold his stakes in both the principal ship's company and the Mersey John Mill , 1st Baron Beaverbrook took the Saame activeness , resulting the companionship being again completely in house dominance .As newspaper circulation rose again , Eric invested to reduplicate the content of the Mersey mills.After the end of Duke of Windsor Harold Clayton Lloyd , in 1936 the caller bought both the Sittingbourne and relatively New Kemsley composition mill .This brought the society 's yield to 500,000 slews per annum across four works , producing 60 % of British newspaper and the with child newspaper God Almighty in Europe.After a Scandinavian-cartel engineered a with child acclivity in mush monetary value , Eric started to bribe into bleak pulp magazine output .After buying afforest pastime in both Sweden and Norge , he bought a vauntingly flesh and report mill at street corner creek , Newfoundland dog in 1938 , which owned 7,000 feather mile ( 18,000 km2 ) of timbre and produced 200,000 loads per yr of paper .This brought the ship's company newsprint output up to 800,000 rafts per annum .