Ball Corp., Broomfield, Colo., has agreed to acquire North American plastic bottle container assets of Alcan Packaging for $180 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2006. Ball will acquire three Alcan plastic container manufacturing plants in Batavia, Ill.; Bellevue, Ohio; and Brampton, Ontario. Ball also will acquire equipment and other assets at Alcan’s Newark, Calif., plant and at its Neenah, Wis., research facility, and will continue to operate at those locations during 2006.

GE Water & Process Technologies, Trevose, Pa., a unit of General Electric Co., will acquire Zenon Environmental Inc., Oakville, Ontario, for $656 million. Zenon produces advanced membranes for water purification, wastewater treatment and water reuse to municipalities and industries.

Eaton Corp., Cleveland, Ohio, signed an agreement with Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. to purchase its Synflex business unit. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. Synflex, which had 2005 sales of $120 million, employs about 450 people in four locations.

New Age Industries, Southampton, Pa., became employee-owned at the beginning of 2006. Called an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, the program involved selling 30 percent of the company, via shares of stock, to employees as part of their retirement benefits.

AEP Industries Inc., South Hackensack, N.J., purchased the business and operating assets of Mercury Plastics Inc.’s Bowling Green, Ky., facility. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Sonoco, Hartsville, S.C., has acquired the packaging assets and business of Wycon Corp., a Waco, Texas, flexible packaging subsidiary of Seville Flex Pack Corp. The purchase includes Wycon’s 135,000-square-foot facility in Waco, which operates two 12-color rotogravure presses.