Next Wave Ventures is delighted to announce the acquisition of Petainer, the market leader in Germany for reusable PET bottles and in the Nordic region for PET beverage containers, from Rexam Plc for a consideration of £16 million. This acquisition will allow Petainer to expand into other growth markets, including other beverage sectors that are beginning to replace their current packaging with PET and geographically into Central and Eastern Europe.

Headquartered in Lidköping Sweden, with a second plant in Aš, Czech Republic and a sales office in Germany, Petainer was formerly part of Rexam Plc, a global consumer packaging company. Petainer manufactures and supplies polyethylene terephalate (“PET”) bottles, preforms[1] and kegs to a range of global drinks companies.  

Petainer is now wholly owned by Next Wave Ventures, a growth capital investor, WHEB Ventures and a combination of the current management team led by Per-Olof Wallin, Managing Director, and two new directors, Nigel Pritchard, Group CEO, and Brian Woods, Group COO.

Stephen Walls, Partner at Next Wave Ventures said: “We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Petainer. The business is cash generative, has existing long term relationships with blue chip customers and comes to us with a very strong and experienced management team.”

James McNaught-Davis, Managing Partner at WHEB Ventures said: “Petainer’s unique products reduce the environmental impact normally associated with drinks packaging.  Businesses faced with the increasing challenge of meeting their carbon reduction commitments have found Petainer’s products provide the solution for meeting packaging volume reduction plans.”

Per-Olof Wallin, Managing Director of Petainer, Sweden said: “Petainer’s latest technology, the PET beer keg was launched in September 2009 and aims to replace the traditional metal keg. The PET keg significantly reduces the environmental impact of keg distribution. It is substantially lighter compared to its metal counterpart, requires less energy in its manufacture and is recyclable, therefore removing the need for it to be returned. It also provides significant savings to breweries in the total cost of draught beer distribution and removes the working capital burden of running a large fleet of metal kegs. Trial customers include both high-end specialist breweries and large beer multinationals.”

Nigel Pritchard, Petainer’s new Group CEO said: “This acquisition is a very exciting opportunity to build on the Company’s reputation for operational and service excellence. Our future growth strategy is based on investing in innovation and new product and service development and in providing the continuous development and excellence that our customers have come to expect.”

The global market for consumer packaging is estimated at $450 billion. Of this, 70% is for food and beverage applications and 40% of this comprises plastic packaging. 

Market estimates predict that the global demand for PET packaging will grow by 40% by 2015 from 2009 figures.

Advisers:

Legal adviser: Macfarlanes, Howard Corney

Corporate finance adviser: Blackwood Capital Group, Thomas Kardos

Due diligence adviser: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andrew McCrosson

Richard Mills joins as Research Director, having previously been on the Board at MMR Research Worldwide. Before that, he worked at Mars, Rothmans, and Allied Domecq.

Sarah Heather takes up the post of Associate Director after eight years working in FMCG adhoc NPD research at Conquest.

At Mimosa, the firm’s new qualitative division – Sunita Bhabra joins from Kids Research, with more than 12 years’ experience in FMCG, NPD, media and social research.

In addition, Teresa Pereira joins as Research Executive from Marktest, Portugal; Bethany Shinkins joins as Trainee Statistician with an MSc in Applied Statistics and Data Mining and a BSc in Psychology; and Jigna Naik joins as Senior DP Executive having previously held several DP and operations roles in the UK and India.

Joint MD Andrew Tharme comments: ‘We are delighted that we are in a position to continue to recruit talent into our business. Richard and Sarah bring with them a combined total of over 30 years FMCG NPD experience, whereas, Sunita brings with her rare expertise in kids’ qualitative research.’

With regard to existing staff, Stuart Wright has been promoted to the role of Research Manager in the Customer Experience team, while Irene Koumi moves up to the post of Research Executive in the FMCG team.

Tharme added that both promotions reflect the pair’s ‘tremendous performance’ and are thoroughly deserved.

TORA conducts ad hoc and tracking work covering FMCG, transport, education, local government and retail research.

Web sites: www.tora.co.uk and www.mimosa-qual.com

The Oxford Research Group has acquired the rights to a unique market research tool which will strengthen the agency’s delivery of insights into the potential for its client’s new product launches.

The acquisition represents a significant opportunity for growth for the agency as it will enable the company to respond more quickly to its clients needs.

The acquisition will make The Oxford Research Group one of only 4 UK market research companies with in-house capabilities in volume estimation.

The Oxford Research Group has launched a new qualitative market research division to complement its extensive offering in quantitative research.

This represents a significant opportunity for The Oxford Research Group to build its offering and widen the range of services it offers to its existing clients.

Next Wave Partners LLP which manages the Next Wave Funds has recruited two investment professionals, Peter Wood and Nainish Bapna.

Peter joins Next Wave from PricewaterhouseCoopers Strategy Group where was consulting to mid-market PE firms such as Apax Partners, Doughty Hanson and Bridgepoint on their investment strategy and providing commercial advice on transactions. Peter’s experience spans more than 25 commercial due diligence and corporate strategy projects. At Next Wave, Peter will be responsible for investment appraisal and in-house commercial due diligence.

Nainish joins Next Wave from the Fund’s portfolio company ITI Energy which he joined in turn from Strand Partners, the corporate finance boutique, in April 2007. Nainish brings entrepreneurial and analytical expertise to the Next Wave team, drawing upon 5 years equity research at UBS Warburg and Nomura, followed by one year as Director of Operations at NCorp and then four years as Founder and Managing Director of the Pharmacy Channel which became the world’s largest in-pharmacy digital media network. Nainish will focus on portfolio management.

Crendo has acquired a local competitor, Vellinge, giving it a new presence in the Gothenburg area. The acquisition will give Crendo a base to further expand its service offering in the town and surrounding district. Terms were not disclosed.

Next Wave have backed the MBO of a leading independent market research group, The Oxford Research Agency. The MBO was led by Chris Sinclair and Andrew Tharme who are both experienced market researchers with a proven business development track record.

The Oxford Research Agency has a successful 25 year track record of delivering high quality market research insights to high profile global market leading FMCG clients, retailers and UK rail companies. The company is benefiting from the growing trend towards using on-line market research presence.

The investment will primarily be used to develop additional local “hubs” which act as the base for providing a full suite of facilities management services to properties in the area.

Crendo is a contracted provider of facilities management services to local authorities and property groups. Its services range from electrical repairs and maintenance through to snow clearing.

The business will continue to be managed by its CEO, Alf Sandberg, a highly experienced facilities management professional and proven entrepreneur. NWV have appointed Torben Carlsen, former COO of Gate Gourmet, as Crendo’s non-executive chairman.

The strategy will be to expand organically into towns where Crendo is not yet present, however we will also look to expand via bolt-on acquisitions.

The investment will be used to support the business as it grows and develops its pipeline of projects that will use ITI’s patented gasification technology.

ITI Energy is a groundbreaking cleantech company which targets two of the world’s major environmental concerns 1) Generation of clean energy and 2) Strategies to manage landfill waste.

ITI’s patented gasification technology, combined with the most up-to-date clean-up systems available means it is able to convert municipal waste into energy more efficiently than any technology currently known. ITI has a substantial pipeline of projects at different stages of the development process with huge potential for global expansion.

The company’s strategy is to provide a turnkey solution encompassing its gasification technology, feedstock handling and ultimately electricity generation equipment. In addition to providing the initial turnkey solution, ITI will also continue to own and operate its power plants along alongside its development partners.

ITI Energy is pleased to announce it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Scanship Environmental of Norway, whereby Scanship will promote, install and support ITI Marine Gasification technology.  The agreement covers the full integration and use of ITI Marine Gasification in Scanship’s sustainable Clean Ship Solutions on-board cruise, passenger and naval ships and offshore platforms operating worldwide. The soon to be released gasification system is suitable for new build and retrofit markets, offshore and onshore based applications.

Scanship is a maritime industry leader in advanced technologies for processing and purifying waste water, food waste, solid waste and bio sludge, with approximately 40% of global market share. Scanship is a supplier to most cruise lines and major yards and its environmentally friendly products are increasingly being requested from the merchant fleet and offshore industry.

Henrik Badin, CEO of Scanship said “Cruise ships produce a considerable daily tonnage of waste; environmental constraints are making it increasingly difficult and costly to dispose of. ITI’s technology not only provides an ultra low emission thermal disposal treatment, but also produces a gas that can be fed into an internal combustion engine to generate a considerable amount of electricity, replacing part of the necessary diesel generation. At average conversion rates of over one megawatt of electricity from a tonne of dry waste, the operational savings for ship owners will be considerable, while also lowering their carbon footprint.”

Asgeir Wien, Scanship’s Chief Technology Officer, said “We have spent a considerable time assessing advanced thermal conversion technologies. We believe ITI’s gasification process offers superior efficiencies and robustness, which fits ideally with our integrated waste management philosophy. Initial conversations with ship owners have demonstrated great enthusiasm for this new approach to waste management.”

Miles Lewis, Deputy Chairman of ITI Energy, stated “We are delighted to have entered into this partnership with a company with the experience and expertise of Scanship. On-board waste management is necessarily more sophisticated and Scanship has provided solutions to many of the worlds most prestigious cruise vessels. Many of the integration skills readily translate to larger scale, onshore applications and we are pleased to say that Scanship is also already generating enquiries in Scandinavia for waste-to-energy projects.”