East Midlands packaging firms Mercury and CPS Flexible in merger deal

Mercury and CPS Flexible have merged to form a major flexible packaging company with a combined turnover of £16million and forecasted growth of 25 per cent over a three-year period.

The new business will operate under holding company, Quicksilver, but keep the Mercury Packaging and CPS Flexible brand names. Primarily targeting the food, publishing, retail and security markets, it will run from production facilities located in Nottingham and Leicester.

The merged company will now offer high performance production equipment, including six extruders, three print presses and a range of converting machines, as well as lamination and in-house design capabilities.

Tony Stanger, new Group Chairman, said: “This transaction brings together two highly complementary and long-established organisations to create a new, more powerful flexible packaging company designed to further enhance our expertise and capabilities.”

CPS Flexible has extensive extrusion capability to produce both polythene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) films to complement print and bag-making functions. Mercury Packaging does not offer extrusion but has printing, conversion and lamination works.

“The individual businesses have been very successful and achieved sustainable levels of profit but capacity was starting to become an issue and a potential obstacle to future growth,” added Stanger. “It became evident very quickly that there were several areas for synergy between the companies.

“Despite both operating within the food and publishing markets, there are very few common customers and significant areas where Mercury Packaging could benefit from CPS Flexible’s extrusion capabilities. Likewise, the former’s lamination equipment will be an advantage for CPS Flexible.”

Mercury Packaging’s Chairman, Tony Stanger, will take on the role for the Group, and CPS Flexible’s current Production Director, Simon Rose, will become Group Managing Director.