This page is an archive of news and news background stories. Stories are placed here when they expire from the news pages and are filed in date order, most recent on the top. Go to the most recent or browse through the headline links.
We quote monetary figures - company results, materials prices etc - in the currency in which they were originally reported. You can convert them to your own currency at today's exchange rates.
Wavin moves injection moulding operations January 15, 2007
Wavin is to close its site at Lichfield in Staffordshire and move its injection moulding activities to its site at Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The move is the latest step in the rationalisation that the company began when it bought Hepworth Building Products in 2005. Last year Wavin transferred extrusion operations in Padiham to sites at Brandon and Chippenham. Wavin currently has eight manufacturing sites in the UK and one in Ireland.
Taiwanese blow moulding machine comes to Britain January 15, 2007
A new range of blow moulding machines has gone on sale in Britain. Bristol-based NB Equipment has extended its representation of the FKI film and sheet equipment range from Taiwan to include the company's range of blow moulding machines.
The range covers machines to produce containers from 1 to 300 litres, but FKI has increasing international sales of larger sized machines.
NBE has arranged UK-based support for installation and warranty service through a group of established blow moulding service companies.
In addition to blow moulding machinery, FKI also offers leak testing, after-coolers and downstream automation.
Borealis invests more in PP production January 15, 2007
Borealis is to invest Eur 90 million in its polypropylene plants in Finland and Austria. It is to expand its Porvoo, Finland, polypropylene plant by 65,000 tonnes to 220,000 tonnes in a Eur 25 million investment project due for completion by the end of 2008.
The remaining investment will be split at the Schwechat plant in Austria. Eur 35 million will be spent to add a gas phase reactor and create a four-reactor configuration for the production of higher grade materials partly to meet the needs of the expanding automotive markets in Central and Eastern Europe. The additional gas phase reactor will be operational during 2009.
And to develop advanced multi-modal polypropylenes Borealis is to build a Eur 30 million four-reactor pilot plant which will be completed in 2009.
O-I considers selling its plastics packaging businesses January 13, 2007
Owens-Illinois is considering selling its plastics packaging businesses. It has retained financial analyst Goldman Sachs to assess the future of the businesses, and one of the options under review is a sale.
O-I Plastics comprises two divisions, HealthCare Packaging and Closure & Specialty Products, with plants in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Hungary, Singapore and Malaysia. Between them they turned over $770 million in the company's last full year. O-I is primarily a glass packaging business, and in 2004 sold off its blow moulded plastics packaging businesses in North America, South America and Europe
to Graham Packaging, and much of its ACI Packaging subsidiary in Australia and New Zealand to Visy Industrial Plastics.
Film equipment companies combine January 13, 2007
Germany's Brückner stretch and cast film machinery group has bought Kiefel, which makes blown film lines and winders and thermoforming machines. Kiefel's former owner, JM Gesellschaft für industrielle Beteiligungen, owns Renolit and RKW (Rheinische Kunststoffwerke) and will focus on plastic film production. Brückner will operate Kiefel as a separate company, but anticipates synergies between the two companies as well as sharing sales and production facilities in Asia, Eastern Europe and the USA.
New MD for Ferromatik Milacron in Europe January 13, 2007
A new managing director has been appointed to run the Ferromatik Milacron injection moulding machinery plant in Germany. Guy Moilliet joins the company from a Swiss business consultancy to take over from Dr Karlheinz Bourdon, who is also global injection moulding machinery president for Milacron. Dr Bourdon took over from Dr Michael Koch as a temporary measure at the end of 2004.
Closer to home Ferromatik Milacron's UK general manager Erwin Miller is planning his retirement after nearly 30 years with the company.
Wittmann expands around the world January 13, 2007
Ancillary equipment manufacturer Wittmann has opened a sales and service subsidiary in India, and is about to complete an extension to its production plant in China and an expansion to its Mexican facility. The company is also planning an expansion in France at its granulator-building subsidiary CMB Wittmann, where it will also house its more recent acquisition, injection moulding toolmaker Regad.
GE Plastics up for sale?? January 9, 2007
Speculation is running high that General Electric is in talks to sell GE Plastics. The sale of GE Plastics was pitched as likely after GE sold its Advanced Materials division to Apollo Management in September. Now US financial commentators say that the business is being auctioned, with private equity companies likely to pay as much as $10 billion.
While GE Plastics is a profitable operation, its profits fell 23 per cent in the third quarter as raw material costs rose, and a sale is seen as a likely continuation by GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt of a policy of disposals of vulnerable businesses and acquisitions of high fliers: he has spent nearly $70 billion on acquisitions in areas such as health care since becoming chief executive in 2001, according to one source.
Goldman Sachs is reported to be managing bids for the business, and while equity companies are seen as the most likely purchasers, commentators have tipped BASF and Dow Chemical as possible contenders, while SABIC is quoted as saying that it may bid if the company was put up for sale.
Wilden and Autobar Packaging change hands January 9, 2007
The new year has started with the take over of two major European plastics processors. Gerresheimer Group has bought medical moulder Wilden, and Sun Capital has bought part of Autobar.
Gerresheimer is a predominantly glass-based group of 23 companies worldwide, operating in four divisions - Moulded Glass, Tubular Glass, Plastic Systems and Life Science Research. Its Plastics Systems companies are Wilden and three packaging companies, Bünder Glas (Germany), Dudek Plast (Denmark) and Polfa (Poland).
Wilden of Germany operates two divisions, Medical Plastics Systems which accounts for two thirds of its Eur 240 million annual sales, and Technical Plastic Systems moulding mainly for the automotive industry. Wilden has eight production plants and four joint ventures with a presence in Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Sweden, the Czech Republic, China, Italy, the United Arab Emirates and in Britain at Weybridge in Surrey, with a total of more than 2,300 employees. Its acquisition brings Gerresheimer up to more than 31 plants in America, Europe and Asia with a worldwide total of 8,500 employees. Group sales will rise to more than Eur 900 million.
Autobar Packaging has been bought from Charterhouse Capital Partners by another investment company, an affiliate of Sun European Partners. Charterhouse bought the Autobar Group, which also includes businesses in vending and distribution, from the Kuwait Investment Office in July 2004. Charterhouse retains the vending and distribution operations.
Autobar Packaging has three business units: Veriplast International (plastic cups, glasses, and trays), Autobar Rigid Packaging (thin wall plastic packaging for the dairy and other food industries), and Autobar Flexible Packaging (free standing consumer bags, pallet wrap, printed shrink film, food packaging, refuse bags, and envelopes). Production is at 15 sites in seven countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, UK, Poland, and Bulgaria).
Trelleborg streamlines further January 9, 2007
Swedish-based rubber products group Trelleborg is further streamlining its structure and is to amalgamate its Building Systems and Engineered Systems businesses. The resulting Trelleborg Engineered Systems will be the biggest of four divisions, bringing in around 37 per cent of Trelleborg's sales volume at around £737 million, with some 7,000 employees.
Trelleborg recently announced plans to revamp its second biggest division, its automotive business, with plant closures in the UK and possibly elsewhere in Europe, and its smallest division, Wheel Systems, which sees some operations move from the USA to Sri Lanka.
Top management changes at Borealis January 9, 2007
Mark Garrett is to replace John Taylor as chief executive of Borealis when he retires at the end of this year. He will join the company from Ciba Specialty Chemicals on April 1. At Ciba he was executive vice president water and paper treatment and a member of the executive committee. John Taylor has been Borealis chief executive for the past six years.
Borealis Film and Fibre Vice President Harald Hammer has been appointed chief executive of Borouge, replacing Hubert Puchner. Mr Puchner is to become executive vice president of AgroLinz Melamine International, which has just become part of Borealis. He will remain a member of the Borouge Board. Mr Hammer is succeeded by Marc Hubert, Borealis' director of commercial excellence.
Electronic plastic paper plant to be built in Germany January 9, 2007
Britain's pioneering electronic paper company is to build its first commercial scale factory - in Germany. The Plastic Logic plant will produce flexible active-matrix display modules for 'take anywhere, read anywhere' electronic reader products. The company says it is able to make displays that are thin, light and robust 'enabling a reading experience closer to paper than any other technology'.
To fund the factory, at Dresden in the 'Silicon Saxony' region of eastern Germany, Plastic Logic is drawing on the extensive investment it has raised through Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment Corporation.
The plant will produce display modules for portable electronic reader devices - a product category that is predicted to grow to 41·6 million units in 2010. It will have an initial capacity of more than a million display modules per year and production will start in 2008.
Beldam group is reunited January 9, 2007
A group of rubber seals companies has been reunited after a family dispute. The Beldam group of companies started life at the end of the nineteenth century making marine seals for the Admiralty but a falling out in the Beldam family took Beldam Lascar away from the rest and it has been operating independently for many years. After several mergers with other companies in the rubbers seals business the other Beldam companies arrived as subsidiaries of Pexion while Beldam Lascar continued to operate independently.
Now Pexion has taken over Beldam Lascar.
Turnkey package to replace glass medical packaging January 9, 2007
Blow moulding systems supplier Kortec has developed a turnkey package for medical/pharmaceutical applications that perform 'better than glass'. The risk of contamination from glass breakage has been a major incentive to switch from glass to plastics containers, but according to Kortec, while plastics could meet the mechanical requirements, they could not provide the necessary gas barrier. This has now been overcome with an injection blow package based on Uniloy Milacron equipment.
The first system has been sold to GE Plastics for product development and combines two polycarbonate skins with a nylon barrier layer. A diagnostic container made with this structure is said to withstand difficult sterilization processes such as steam and autoclave and to have good clarity, bottle strength and gas barrier properties.
Future development of the system is likely to take it into three-layer PC, as well as PP, HDPE and PET containers that need additional gas or moisture barrier performance. The barrier layer can be designed to block light, moisture, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hold a vacuum or whatever else might be needed for medical and pharmaceutical applications.
As well as pharmaceutical applications Kortec sees potential in cosmetics and perfumes and other high quality co-extruded applications that can benefit from more uniform wall thickness and high-quality neck finishes.
The first systems are four cavities, but Kortec is offering systems up to 16 cavities.
ON-LINE
ON-LINE Home