Mercury Packaging and CPS Flexible merge

In a key strategic move designed to increase capacity and boost production efficiencies, Mercury Packaging and CPS Flexible have merged to form a major flexible packaging company with a combined turnover of some 16 million GBP and forecasted growth of 25 percent over a three-year period.

Mercury Packaging does not offer extrusion but boasts printing, conversion and lamination competencies

The newly-formed BRC-accredited business will operate under a holding company, Quicksilver, but retain the Mercury Packaging and CPS Flexible brand names. Primarily targeting the food, publishing, retail and security markets, it will run from the existing state-of-the-art production facilities located in Nottingham and Leicester.

CPS Flexible has extensive extrusion capability for the production of both polythene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) films to complement its print and bag making functions. Mercury Packaging does not offer extrusion but boasts printing, conversion and lamination competencies. The combined equipment pool includes a Uteco Onyx 8-color flexographic gearless print press, Comexi 8-color gearless press, Soma Optima flexo press, six state-of-the-art extruders, Uteco Eclipse solventless digital laminator and a range of converting, slitting and rewinding equipment.

Backed by a dynamic senior management team, 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.

Tony Stanger, new group chairman, explained: ‘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 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. 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.’

Group managing director Simon Rose added: ‘This is an extremely positive move for our businesses with customers benefitting from the two companies’ combined 65 years of experience in the flexible packaging industry. Plus both organizations have a strong sense of shared vision and values, highlighting a natural synergy in terms of what we do and how we do it.’