UK supplier of speciality plastic, fibre and foam Filtrona plc (Milton Keynes; www.filtrona.com) has announced that it will be changing its name to better reflect its diverse business activities and help unify its international corporate culture into a single identity. As of 26 June the new name for the company and – over time – its assorted subsidiaries is Essentra plc. Unlike the soon-to-be-old brand identity, where some entities used the "Filtrona" name and logo and others did not; the new approach involves all areas of business to adopt the "Essentra" brand. This process should be underway in the second half of 2013.

In a media release, the company stated though the name is abstract, it is derived from the idea that much of what the company supplies to the industries it serves are the "millions of small but essential" components for a customer's products. The rebranding campaign has taken a year internally to realise and now the British company is ready to roll out the final steps to the public.

In other news from the company, Filtrona was busy the beginning of 2013 and in February it acquired 100% of Ulinco Components AB (Askim / Sweden) for an undisclosed sum. The Swedish company produces plastic protection and finishing products and has annual revenues of about EUR 6.2m. In March, it scooped up British packaging, leaflet and blister pack provider Contego Healthcare Ltd (Bagshot; www.contegopackaging.com), whose customers are primarily pharma and healthcare-orientated. The transaction price for Contego was GBP 160m (EUR 188m). In 2012 the company, with just under 1,000 employees, recorded annual revenues of GBP 102.7m and an EBITDA of GBP 13.9m.

Filtrona's focus has traditionally been on the light manufacturing of high-volume components to a variety of industries. It currently operates with five business areas: "component and protection solutions" where it supplies plastic injection-moulded, vinyl dip-moulded and metal items; "porous technologies“ involving the manufacture of non-woven fibre, polyurethane foam and porous plastic; "coated and security products" covering packaging and securing solutions including tapes, foils and labels for consumer packaging and authentification technologies; "Filter products" serving the tobacco market and Dutch custom profile extruder Enitor (Buitenpost; www.enitor.nl).