PVC window profile manufacturer Profine (Troisdorf / Germany; www.profine-group.com) has announced its acquisition of Aperture Trading (Huthwaite / UK), formerly Synseal Extrusion. Only a year after purchasing Synseal, Aperture Trading went into administration earlier this year, with Chris Pole and Will Wright from KPMG (Amsterdam / The Netherlands; www.kpmg.com) appointed administrators of the UK company on 16 March 2020. Not long afterwards, several hundred jobs were cut at the Huthwaite site.

Following the sale of its “Global”, “Celsius” and “Stratus” products for roof applications, the joint administrators have completed the sale of the remaining extrusion and fabrications assets to Profine. The sale includes transfer of WarmCore, Legend, Synerjy, Shield, Sheerframe, Evolve, Calibre doors and Norvik New Build. KPMG said 38 employees in Huthwaite will remain, preserving continued operations there.

The UK is regarded as one of Profine’s key markets, although the company has not had extrusion capacities of its own there until now. The takeover of Aperture changes this. Under the new name “UK Extrusions”, more than 20 extrusion lines, an in-house mixing plant and several film and injection moulding lines along with around 100 employees will start operating this week. Profine intends to continue to offer its “Kömmerling” brand in the UK and, conversely, to offer various Aperture products in other countries.

Synseal’s core businesses were acquired by Aperture Trading in March 2019, a newly formed Synseal management team led by CEO Matthew Mycock and sales director Andy Jones as well as a former majority shareholder. At the time, Synseal still had more than 1,000 employees. The aim at that time was apparently to improve Synseal’s market orientation with innovative products. Synseal itself had acquired some competitors in previous years – LB Plastics (PVC window profiles) and Manse Masterdor (doors – see Plasteurope.com of 27.11.2014).