Kompuestos, a Spanish compounder, is planning to raise fresh capital this month with a public share offering to enable it to expand its growing bio-solutions business.
The Barcelona-based firm has received a “favourable report” from the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil (MAB), a Spanish alternative equity market for SMEs, after it reviewed corporate information submitted by Kompuestos.
The company, which is firmly committed to sustainable product development, intends to reveal details of its capital increase once the transaction is concluded.
Formerly known as Plásticos Compuestos S.A., the enterprise aims to use the additional funds to purchase and install a new production line to boost its capacity, especially for biodegradable polymers.
Kompuestos, which began life in 1986 as a family-owned colour masterbatch producer and today still offers polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene masterbatches, has set out to raise the percentage of recycled materials in all its formulations to 20% within five years.
Last year, the Catalan compounder launched a new product line, biodegradable resins under the ‘Biokomp’ brand made from various natural corn, potato and cereals starches.
This grade can be moulded using regular processes including extrusion, cast and blown film and injection moulding and has been targeted at single use plastics applications such as for refuse sacks, shopping bags and vegetable packaging, according to the company.
Kompuestos, which aimed to complete the range of compostable polymers by June 2019, has already received the ‘OK Compost’ certification from TÜV Austria to meet the European standard for compostable packaging.
The firm admitted that around 80% of its output is still for manufacturing single-use plastics. However, it intends to modify its formulations and reduce that to 30% by 2025 while boosting its eco-friendly products from 20% to 70%.
Kompuestos underlined its environmental strategy earlier this year when it joined the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment to boost circularity in the plastic industry while a sustainable development.
The Global Commitment and its vision for a circular economy for plastic are led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with UN Environment.
“We embrace this new journey with our pledge to build more sustainable solutions for the plastic industry. Besides, it is our aim to boost the usage of recycled materials as well as compostable resins,” Kompuestos declared.
The family-owned enterprise operates two plants in Barcelona. In 2018, it recorded a pretax profit of €3.7m on annual turnover worth over €41.3m, up 13.1% compared with the previous year’s result.