ICG Commerce Expands Procurement Outsourcing Relationship and Global Footprint With Greif, Inc.

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 15, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Demonstrating its focus on driving sustainable cost savings and continued growth, Greif, Inc., a world leader in industrial packaging products and services, has signed a five-year contract expansion with ICG Commerce, the procurement outsourcing specialist. In the expanded relationship, ICG Commerce will manage all areas of non-core spend for Greif, including indirects, logistics, capital equipment and select direct materials across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Procurement outsourcing continues to play a pivotal role in supporting Greif's growth and allowing us to remain agile in the changing economic landscape, said Ron Brown, senior vice president of Global Sourcing & Supply Chain for Greif. In looking for new efficiencies and cost reductions, it was clear that fully engaging ICG Commerce on a global scale would drive greater control over Greif's expenditures.

Click here for video interview with Ron Brown on achieving accelerated value through procurement outsourcing.

The new contract extends ICG Commerce's partnership with Greif, which began in 2004 when Greif identified an opportunity to better leverage indirect spend being managed locally across more than two hundred factories worldwide. Over the past five years, ICG Commerce has helped Greif successfully reduce fragmentation and further expand the reach of the program to drive increased control over indirect expenditures. The recent expansion marks a fourfold increase in the amount of spend ICG Commerce will help manage and increases the geographic scope to support all of Grief's global operations.

With a vision of achieving world-class performance in spend management, we've recognized an opportunity to combine Greif's strong capability in procuring strategic, direct materials with ICG Commerce's indirect procurement expertise, market intelligence and infrastructure, Brown said. Greif will continue to be world class in buying resin, steel and paper. For everything else, we will look to ICG Commerce to help drive sustainable savings across our global operations.

More manufacturers are leveraging procurement outsourcing as a way to drive measurable savings in under-resourced buying categories while continuing to focus internal efforts on optimizing direct supplies and raw materials purchases. Having already executed more traditional cost reduction approaches, manufacturing executives are looking to procurement outsourcing as the next generation of cost savings that can be reinvested in growth and expansion.

We're honored to be seen as a strategic partner to Greif and a key part of its continued growth and success, noted Carl Guarino, Chief Executive Officer of ICG Commerce. This expansion reflects our commitment to delivering bottom line savings for our clients. The ICG Commerce team looks forward to supporting Greif's continued growth and helping drive financial agility through world class spend management.

About Greif, Inc. Greif is a world leader in industrial packaging products and services. The company produces steel, plastic, fibre, corrugated and multiwall containers, protective packaging and containerboard, and provides blending, filling and packaging services for a wide range of industries. Greif also manages timber properties in North America. The Company is strategically positioned in more than 45 countries to serve global as well as regional customers.

About ICG Commerce, Inc. ICG Commerce, the procurement outsourcing specialist, is driving a fundamental change in the way today's businesses achieve financial agility and fund growth. ICG Commerce is the only procurement outsourcing specialist with superior market intelligence integrated into an operational approach, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in realized savings. ICG Commerce is a privately held company and member of Internet Capital Group's (Nasdaq: ICGE) network of partner companies.