Should Kingspan's (Kingscourt / Ireland; www.kingspan.com) takeover bid for Recticel's (Brussels / Belgium; www.recticel.com) Insulation and Flexible Foams divisions succeed (see Plasteurope.com of 23.04.2019), the Irish company is looking at selling Flexible Foams to Austrian plastics processor Greiner (Kremsmünster; www.greiner.at).

Recticel's flexible foams business comprises 34 plants in the EMEA region, Asia Pacific and North America. In Central and Eastern Europe, these activities are part of Eurofoam (Vienna / Austria; www.eurofoam.eu), a 50:50 joint venture with Greiner. In Italy, Recticel bundles flexible foams activities in Orsa Foam (Gorla Minore / Italy; www.orsafoam.it), a JV it has with the Orsa group (Gorla Minore; www.orsa-group.it). The entire division accounts for more than 40% (EUR 626m in 2017) of Recticel's sales.

Greiner's Foam division includes the joint ventures Eurofoam and Unifoam (PU foams), Greiner Perfoam (automotive), Greiner aerospace (aircraft seats), Greiner MULTIfoam (composites foams), Gukotech (cork-rubber materials) and Greiner PURtec (boiler insulation). In 2017, the group of companies generated turnover of EUR 387m at 63 locations with 3,730 employees. When Greiner acquires Recticel's flexible foams business, sales here could nearly triple.