packagingnews.co.uk

Challenger to corrugated's big three as Board 24 owners rebrand group

EXCLUSIVE - The owners of Board 24 and Boxes and Packaging are aiming to challenge the dominance of UK corrugated's big three with a major rebrand and a multi-million pound investment in new equipment.

Ian Loggie exclusively revealed to Packaging News that the four corrugated businesses he jointly owns with Mike Stephenson – Boxes and Packaging, Board 24, Cases 24 and Inspirepac – are to be integrated under a new name, the Logson Group.

The group, which employs around 800 staff, already has combined turnover of around £180m (see below) and Loggie said that he aimed to increase that figure to £200m in the next 12 months through both organic growth and acquisitions.

While the Logson Group is smaller than the UK corrugated's big three - Smurfit Kappa, DS Smith and SAICA - its owners are hoping that the rebrand will offer an alternative that can compete for business with the market’s biggest customers.

Loggie said: "The initial aim is to bind the four businesses together. It’s to get us on the map as a reasonably-sized organisation and we want to demonstrate that we are capable of supplying very small to very large blue-chip customers."

While the names of the four existing businesses will remain, the launch of the Logson brand will also herald a new focus on cross-selling between the four business, which encompass sheet plants, sheet feeders, case-making and high-quality printed packaging.

Corrugator investment
The launch of the new brand comes amid wider plans for investment in the group.

In the Board 24 business, talks are currently underway over the purchase of a £5m corrugator that will be installed at the group’s Coalville site in 2012.

A corrugator currently at that site will then be moved to the Larkhall sheet feeding facility in Scotland, replacing the two machines currently operating there. A third corrugator also operates at Board 24’s Preston facility.

In the shorter term a £1m spend on a Latitude three-colour case-maker has been signed off and the machine is due to be installed at Coalville later this year. Loggie said that the investment would help bolster Cases 24’s capacity in the retail-ready packaging market.

Loggie said: "We're planning to grow organically and through acquisitions but I firmly believe that in this industry you have to have good assets if you are going to have a long term and sustainable business."

Six-year history
The launch of the Logson Group brand comes six years after Loggie and Stephenson first went into business together with the purchase in July 2004 of Boxes and Packaging, a sheet plant in Swindon.

The pair, who had previously worked together at Mondi UK, expanded the business dramatically in October 2005 when they bought Mondi UK's sheet plant network, taking turnover to more than £40m.

Then in early 2008 they acquired Mondi UK's sheet feeding business, which became Board 24.

Inspirepac became a sister company to Board 24 and Boxes and Packaging last autumn when Loggie and Staphenson bought a majority stake in the business.

Boxes and Packaging hit the headlines again last month when it bought DS Smith Packaging's sheet plant in Dumbarton.