Shareholders in One51 (Dublin / Ireland; www.one51.com), the rigid plastics packaging manufacturer, recently gave their unanimous seal of approval to the group’s change of name to IPL Plastics (Saint-Damien-de-Buckland, Québec / Canada; www.ipl-plastics.com), in which it owns a near-67% stake. The name change is part of a reorganisation of the business, which it hopes will pave the way for a stock market listing in Dublin and Toronto sometime next year.

One51 announced it had agreed on a deal with minority stakeholders in IPL that would see them convert their holding into 47m shares in One51. The Irish firm had acquired Canada-based IPL in order to increase its exposure to the growing North American plastics packaging market. It said merging the two businesses would introduce greater certainty into the process for an initial public offering stock market listing.

Confirming the changes at an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, One51 said recent trading across the business had been mixed, hit by rising resins and transport costs as well as a fall in the value of the Canadian and US dollars. While the firm’s UK operation had traded better than the previous year, its Irish business had been hit by lower demand from its largest customer and other operational delays.

One51 said trading across its US-based Macro Plastics (Fairfield, California; www.macroplastics.com) business, which it bought in May 2017 (see Plasteurope.com of 24.05.2017), had been “solid” and it had received the first tranche of orders from a significant automotive-related contract that had been anticipated at the time of the acquisition. One51 has also made a series of investments across the US and Canada that it said would help it meet the growing demand in those markets. Alan Walsh, One51’s chief executive, noted he was excited by the opportunities for continued growth in the North American rigid-plastic market with a presence on the US West Coast.