GREENVILLE, S.C. (Feb. 17, 11:25 a.m. ET) -- Mauser AG continues to expand its North American industrial container base with the acquisition of Varicon LLC of Greenville, S.C.

Mauser plans to close Varicon’s operations in Greenville and Cleveland.

Mauser will take over Varicon’s operations that use virgin and post-consumer high density polyethylene to make tight-head and open-head drums. National Container Group, a Mauser sister company, will assume Varicon’s drum reconditioning activities.

Varicon is known for its post-consumer containers and as a service provider. Its manufacturing and headquarters are in Greenville, and the firm has a distribution facility near Cleveland.

All of Varicon’s operations will move to Mauser’s facility in Charlotte, N.C., according to a statement from Mark Daniels, president of Varicon.

He said operations will continue for a few months in Greenville as the transition occurs. Daniels said the move to nearby Charlotte will provide improved efficiency for Mauser. Both companies will work together to assist employees either in transferring to Charlotte or finding new employment locally.

Varicon has 45 employees and 92 contractors working at its Greenville facility. It also has 11 employees in Cleveland.

“This acquisition is another milestone supporting our worldwide growth strategy and enables us to meet the increasing requirements for plastic packaging made out of PCR resin including all related services in the southeastern U.S.,” said Jeff Simmonds, Mauser’s SBU manager for North America, in a statement.

Mauser recently boosted its intermediate bulk container capacity by 70 percent at its Houston facility. National Container also has a facility in Houston.

Mauser AG is based in Brühl, Germany. It has about 4,000 employees and produces plastic packaging, fiber drums, steel drums, intermediate bulk containers and reconditioning services.

Mauser and NCG have sites and multiple joint ventures in Europe, the Americas and Asia, plus two licensee networks for plastics and steel packaging.