Germany’s Akro-Plastic (Niederzissen; www.akro-plastic.com) plans to invest EUR 17m into expanding the plant located at company headquarters. Specifically, the group plans to build 14 new compounding lines on 20,000 m² of grounds, a measure that is likely to more than double the existing capacity of 55,000 t/y to some 115,000 t/y, a spokeswoman for parent company K.D. Feddersen (Hamburg / Germany; www.kdfeddersen.com) told Plasteurope.com. Akro-Plastic manufactures mostly PA compounds (“Akromid” and “Akroloy”) and is also a contract compounder of polyester.

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on 12 August 2011 and the new buildings are scheduled to be completed by next year. As a result of the expansion, Akro-Plastic plans to hire 80 new employees. Just last spring, the group completed its earlier expansion of storage, laboratory and administrative facilities.

A look at Germany’s trade registry also shows that Akro-Plastic has raised its share capital by EUR 3m to EUR 13m, although the spokeswoman did not want to elaborate on the background to this move.

Aside from Akro-Plastic, Feddersen’s Plastics Production business comprises AF Color (Niederzissen / Germany; http://af-color.com) and Akro Engineering Plastics (Suzhou) (Suzhou / China). The latter business in particular has been configured for further growth after a second compounding line was installed in Q3 2010, raising local capacity to 7,000 t/y. Another group member is Feddem (Sinzig / Germany; http://feddem.com), a manufacturer of extrusion and compounding facilities. This backward integration offers a lot of benefits to the management of Akro-Plastics, especially with regard to maintenance turnarounds and upkeep.