Dublin / Ireland-headquartered environmental-services and plastics company One51 (www.one51.com) has acquired IPL (Québec / Canada; www.ipl-plastics.com), a producer of injection-moulded plastics products serving the environmental, bulk-food and retail sectors, for CAD 280m (around EUR 200m).

The business was acquired from Canadian private-equity firm Novacap (Québec / Canada; www.novacap.ca) and Fonds de Solidarité (FTSQ; www.fondsftq.com), a Québec-based labour-sponsored invest fund. The transaction gives One51 a controlling stake (67%), while FSTQ will remain as a shareholder (11%), joined by Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (www.cdpq.com), a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for the Canadian public sector, with a 22% holding.

Alan Walsh, One51 CEO, said: “This is a transformational deal for One51 but it’s not just about scale, it’s about strategic fit. IPL gives us access to significant new markets for our existing products while also allowing us to bring a wide range of exciting new products, especially in food packaging and bulk containers, to our existing customers." The company will become part of One Plastics Group (www.oneplastics.com), one of the two operational pillars of One51, which is also active in the environmental segment (waste disposal, recycling).

IPL employs 800 people across three plants in Canada, in Québec and New Brunswick, and Kansas / USA, manufacturing over 400 products for the North American market. It specialises in rigid plastic packaging, garbage bins and transportation crates. In 2014, the company reported an operating profit of (EBITDA) of CAD 30.9m on sales of CAD 215.2m.

Prior to the acquisition, One51 reported an operating profit of EUR 15.7m on sales of EUR 122.5m. It has 455 employees and operates four facilities in the UK, one in the Republic of Ireland and one in China. Operating profit following the acquisition is expected to be EUR 21.9m with sales reaching EUR 276m.