The struggle between two Scandinavian rivals to acquire Norwegian injection and blow moulding group Polimoon (Oslo; www.polimoon.com) is still a cliffhanger – see Plasteurope.com Web of 27.10.2006. The most recent news is that Iceland´s Promens (Reykjavik; www.promens.com), owned by private equity investor Atorka (Reykjavik; www.atorka.net), has made the highest bid, of EUR 162.5m. The latest known offer by private equity investor CapMan (Helsinki / Finland; www.capman.com) totalled EUR 150m. While the higher price could favour Promens, some in the industry say the Iceland-based firm – that bills itself as the world´s largest rotational moulder and plans to run Polimoon independently – may not in a position to pull off a transaction of this size.

In a separate deal that may or may not have any bearing on the raging takeover battle, Polimoon has sold its non-core rotational moulding activities at Bjorkelangen / Norway for around EUR 8m to Cipax, a new company founded by Sweden´s Xano Industri (Jonköping; www.xano.se). This business with 70 employees and annual sales of EUR 8.5m manufactures moulded parts primarily for boats. Xano already owns a prospering rotational moulding company, Örnplast (Skebobruk; www.ornplast.se), and expects to achieve synergies through the buy, set to close on 1 December 2006.