Packaging producer Betts UK (GB-Colchester, Essex; www.betts-uk.com) is selling its speciality injection moulding business to US-based Nypro (Clinton, Massachusetts; www.nypro.com). Production activities of the segment that supplies mainly the pharmaceutical packaging market are planned to be relocated from Colchester to Nypro locations up to the beginning of September 2005. Betts will then exit the market to concentrate on its core business of laminate tubes and injection moulding of related tube components, where it is one of the leaders.

The UK closing will affect 200 of the 500 jobs in the business that last reported sales of around EUR 22m. This represents around 10% of overall turnover at Betts, which closed its injection moulding plant at Wrexham in 2002. Nearly 100 jobs were eliminated there; however, some 50 new jobs were created elsewhere. Nypro also has a production site at Wrexham, along with plants in Hungary, France, Ireland and at Moscow / Russia. The US group is “uniquely placed” to develop the business to a level Betts UK would not have been able to support with “appropriate investment,” said Betts managing director Rosemary Mason.