The company said that the low price ofPRNs and the number of packaging producer compliance schemes operating in the packaging compliance market currently standing at 46 across the UK – meant that more acquisitions in the sector were likely.
Acu-Pak is based in Warwick and used to be run by businessman Mark Sauders, who decided to sell because he was emigrating to Australia. Formerly known as TaG Pack, the company was set up in the early days of the Packaging Waste Regulations as an offshoot of Mr Saunders waste management business, Trees Are Green. The company has around 30 members and will continue to operate under the name of Acu-Pak in the near future.
Nilwaste is the WEEE compliance arm of a waste management company which Wastepack has not taken over and has just a handful of members.
The acquisitions for an undisclosed sum add to the 800 registered companies currently served by Wastepack and follows its acquisition earlier this year of the Welsh packaging producer compliance scheme Recycle Wales (see letsrecycle.com story).
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Lynne Cullis, chief operating officer of the Wastepack Group, explained that these further purchases were part of the groups acquisition strategy and that further consolidation in the market seems likely given the depressed state of the market and the number of schemes operating in the compliance arena.
When the packaging regulations entered the UK, there were no more than 5 schemes, during the past 14 years, that number has risen to 44, she said. Commentators have often said that the compliance market has become a little too crowded. In the future, it is likely that the Packaging Compliance sector will involve fewer but larger compliance schemes she said.
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Wastepack said that it is committed to enhancing the competitive performance of the compliance market within the UK and that these latest acquisitions further strengthened its position and commitment within the UK compliance sector.
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