CPS Flexible Packaging in merger deal
6 March 2017
Two packaging firms have merged to create a multi-million pound business.
Leicester-based CPS Flexible has merged with Notts firm Mercury Packaging.
The enlarged company will have a combined annual turnover of £16 million and management forecasts 25 per cent growth over a three year period.
The two companies said the move is "designed to increase capacity and boost production efficiencies" by creating "a major flexible packaging company".
CPS Flexible director Simon Rose, who becomes managing director of the enlarged business, said: "Mercury Packaging has strong sales but was constrained because of its current facility, while CPS has already invested in machinery and people and needs to gain more business.
"So by putting the two businesses together we have the capacity to gain more business and grow."
Mr Rose said that prior to the merger CPS Flexible was the UK's leading provider of packaging for supermarket magazines, with clients including Sainsbury's and Tesco. Mercury Packaging was its main rival.
Mr Rose said: "We were competitors and now we can bring our knowledge and expertise together to be the number one in the magazine packaging market."
Mr Rose said the newly formed, enlarged business will continue to operate from two sites – at Airmans Business Park in Leicester Forest East and Lowmoor Business Park in Kirkby-in-Ashfield.
Mr Rose said: "The big supermarkets like suppliers to have two sites so that if one site goes down, production can shift to the other, for resilience and continuity planning."
The newly-formed business will operate under a holding company called Quicksilver, but retain the Mercury Packaging and CPS Flexible brand names.
Mr Rose said the merged company offers 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.
He said: "This is an extremely positive move for our businesses with customers benefiting from the two companies' combined 65 years' experience in the flexible packaging industry.
"Both organisations have a strong sense of shared vision and values, highlighting a natural synergy in terms of what we do and how we do it."
Mercury Packaging director Tony Stanger, the 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."
The combined businesses employ around 150 staff across their two sites.
Both companies were advised by the Leicester office of accountancy firm Mazars.
Source: leicestermercury.co.uk