Berry Plastics Corp. has confirmed a deal to buy Rexam plc’s beverage and specialty closures business for $360 million in cash. The deal is scheduled to close in the third quarter.

Rexam SBC makes injection and compression molded specialty and beverage closures, jars, and other plastic packaging products for the food, beverage, industrial and household chemical, automotive and beauty and personal care markets.

The business had 2010 sales of about $500 million and employs 1,500. It has eight manufacturing facilities — seven in the United States and one in Brazil. It also has joint venture plants in Malaysia and Mexico, and a technical center in Perrysburg, Ohio. Rexam purchased the business from Owens-Illinois Inc. in 2007.

Curt Begle, president of Berry’s Rigid Closed Top Division, said in a June 20 news release that the Rexam business will complement Berry’s operations, and will establish Berry “in markets where we do not have a significant presence today.”

The sale’s net proceeds, which is part of Rexam’s planned reorganization of its plastic packaging operation, will be used to reduce debt, said the company.

The deal had been rumored last week, and the London business newspaper City A.M. had reported June 17 that London-based Rexam was in exclusive negotiations with Evansville, Ind.-based Berry.

Rexam officials had confirmed in December that they were in talks to sell the closures unit. At its annual meeting in May, Rexam announced that for accounting purposes, it was reclassifying the largely North American closures unit as “discontinued operations.”