The public flotation of 25% of the Leeds-based company is seen as an invaluable boost to its reputation on top of the expansion of production capacity and product range as local authorities look to invest the government's 135 million waste minimisation and recycling fund from next year.
Chief executive Jonathan Straight told letsrecycle.com: “It's probably one of the most difficult options open to a company to raise money – it puts a big responsibility on a company when it is quoted. But, it will send a signal to customers that we are a public company and that we have to do things by the book. It's about strengthening our reputation, our robustness as a business and will mean customers have confidence in how we operate.”
Mr Straight explained that while considerable investment had already been put into the company, the flotation would see substantial funds available for new kerbside box tooling and software to improve the company's profitability.
“It also means we benefit from a new management team – the new non-executive board includes people like James Newman, who was formerly chairman at Waste Recycling Group and before that at Kelda, and Roger Green, who was financial director at Bodycote International plc. These are very, very experienced people bringing a wealth of knowledge to our company,” Mr Straight said.
Straight has supplied more than 6 million containers over its 10-year history, including wheeled bins, office recycling and hazardous handling containers as well as home composters and water butts.
Benefiting from opportunities provided by DEFRA's 140 million recycling fund of 2001, Straight's customers have included Bradford city council, York city council and Doncaster Community Recycling. The company's revenue for the first seven months of 2003 has been 5.8 million, a growth on the 5.1 million figure for the whole of 2002. Pre-tax profits for this period were 300,000.
The company has already received a massive amount of interest from investors according to Katherine Roe, corporate finance executive at the broker Durlacher. Ms Roe said: “There's already been quite a lot of interest. The company was looking to raise between 1 million and 1.5 million from the flotation, and they have hit the top range of that.”
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