Next Wave invests in Chapco…

Press Release:

19th July 2010: Growth capital private equity investor Next Wave Partners LLP (Next Wave) has invested £5 million into leading facilities management company Chapco Group Limited (Chapco) for a significant minority stake in the business.  The funding will be used to acquire other companies in the sector.

Next Wave Partner Stephen Walls will join Chapco’s board of directors giving the company the benefit of his experience in successfully growing property services firm VPS and leading growth in several FTSE 100 companies ”Chapco has a strong team, great customers, a reputation for quality and many opportunities for growth.  Next Wave is looking forward to working with Chapco”.

Chapco CEO and majority shareholder, Richard Chapman says, “I am delighted to have partnered with NWP to help  take the business to the next level”.

Petainer to supply organic vodka bottles…

Petainer to supply organic vodka bottles to Galatea

From press: foodbev.com

Specialist plastics packaging technology business Petainer is to produce recyclable PET vodka bottles for Galatea, one of the largest suppliers to Systembolaget, the Swedish state monopoly alcohol retailer.

Petainer’s plant at Lidköping in Sweden is to manufacture 70cl bottles for ‘organically produced’ Sailor brand vodka that will be supplied to all 410 Systembolaget shops. Petainer will also fit branded sleeves to the clear plastic bottles.

Peter Edin, product manager at Galatea, said: “It’s important that the bottles should reflect the quality of the Sailor brand, and Petainer is able to deliver this quality reliably and consistently.”

BVCA selects Petainer…

The BVCA has selected Next Wave portfolio company Petainer to present at its upcoming pre-IPO forum on 15th June 2010.  The event is “an original and distinctive forum that brings “pre-IPO” businesses face-to-face with experienced “post-IPO” business leaders and the buyside fund managers who may be the future shareholders in their companies”.

TORA announces Simply Zesty investment…

Next Wave Partners’ portfolio company makes strategic investment in social media

 12^th May 2010 – Next Wave Partners’ portfolio company, The Oxford Research Agency (TORA) has acquired a significant minority stake in Simply Zesty, Ireland’s largest social media agency.  Simply Zesty is a fast growing pure-play social media and online PR agency which boasts a client list including Vodafone, Nokia, Universal Films and The Body Shop.

TORA is a strategic market research consultancy which supports its global FMCG clients in making mission critical marketing and capital investment decisions.  TORA’s work typically focuses on enhancing new product launches, predicting product volumes and optimising the marketing mix.  The partnership with Simply Zesty will add a social media dimension to TORA’s research.  

Peter Wood, of Next Wave Partners who will represent TORA on Simply Zesty’s board of directors says, “We believe cutting edge agencies such as Simply Zesty will be the key beneficiaries of the shift in marketing budgets towards social media.  TORA’s investment in Simply Zesty has created huge opportunities for both companies to exploit this market growth.”

Chris Sinclair, TORA’s CEO says “The coming together of Simply Zesty and TORA gives us the opportunity to redefine research.  We are delighted to be helping Simply Zesty to grow, and excited about bringing to market a dynamic new approach to new product development, customer satisfaction and social media public relations.”

Dublin based Simply Zesty was founded by Niall Harbison and Lauren Fisher.  Managing Director Lauren Fisher says, “We’re delighted to take on this strategic investment from TORA.  We already have some exciting projects lined up that will enable us to use social media in a completely new way.”

International expansion for Oxford Research…

The Oxford Research Agency (TORA) has revealed plans to expand beyond its UK home with new offices in North America and mainland Europe in the summer; and has shuffled its senior management to ready itself for the move.

Chris Sinclair and Andrew Tharme, who led the management buy-out of the company in April 2008, become CEO of the expanded group and MD of the UK business respectively.

Most of the firm’s customer experience and FMCG research work is conducted via interactive online studies. Sinclair says the expansion is underpinned by the firm’s “innovative approach to testing products, packs and concepts, with full integration with our validated food and drink volumetric model”. He adds: “We are seeing considerable demand for our unique products across the globe and are looking forward to providing clients with a fresh and exciting approach to developing and launching better global food and drink products.”

The agency, which is actively recruiting for staff for its new offices, is online at www.tora.co.uk .

Crendo: new contract wins…

Crendo is pleased to announce that it has been awarded two new contracts with HFAB, one of Sweden’s largest municipal housing companies.  HFAB has been operating for over 60 years and owns over 9,800 apartments, 300 rooms and a variety of garages and car parks. They are the largest player in Halmstad’s real estate market.

Crendo’s contracts are for a wide spectrum of electrical and construction services. The contracts which were signed today in Halmstad will start in May 2010.

The contracts are “umbrella contracts” and represent a significant uplift to Crendo’s sales.

Juicy hire: Innocent’s former head of insight joins TORA…

Fruit smoothie firm Innocent’s former head of customer insights Jan Worsley has joined FMCG research specialist The Oxford Research Agency (TORA) as an associate director.

Worsley has spent the past four-and-a-half years at Innocent, leading a team of four with responsibility for all consumer data, research and direct consumer interaction. Prior to this he spent four years at TNS as a bespoke solutions consultant.

At TORA, Worsley will work with food and drink clients, providing consultancy on all aspects of the new product development process.

Worsley said: “Clients are increasingly short of time and need to work with agencies that they can trust. The economic climate of the last 18 months has challenged everyone, and this year the best agencies will be those that deliver unexpected insight to help their clients to predict consumer behaviour as we emerge slowly from recession.”

Next Wave acquires Petainer…

Next Wave Partners acquires environmentally friendly packaging company

Next Wave Partners 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 Partners, 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 Partners 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

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[1] Preforms are injection moulded PET “test-tubes” which can be blown into bottles on customers sites in integrated blowing and filling lines.

TORA continues to grow…

The Oxford Research Agency (TORA) has made a number of appointments and promotions as part of its strategy for continued growth.

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

TORA makes acquisition…

Next Wave portfolio company, The Oxford Research Agency (TORA), makes strategic acquisition

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.