News

Apollo Sheeters, the Bedford producer of sheeting equipment for paper, board, laminates and films, is to be acquired by MarquipWardUnited (MWU) for an undisclosed sum.

The US-based firm, part of the Barry-Wehmiller group, supplies paper and board mills with kit for sheeting corrugated and folding carton materials.

The transaction is expected to be completed during July and will give MWU the capability to satisfy all sheeting requirements from mills to small converters.

MWU Europe and Asia sheeter sales manager Steve Brimble will add managing director of Apollo to his current role.

"The plan is to retain Apollo's people and name, and expand the production and engineering capacity at Bedford," he said.

"We will also merge the MWU and Apollo sheeter sales teams, taking the combined sales operation to 11 staff worldwide. Each sales executive will cover a smaller area but sell a wider range of machines and increase our turnover significantly."

Brimble spent eight years with Apollo when it was owned by Bobst, leaving the company to join MWU when Bobst sold the business, previously operated by Atlas Converting Equipment, to Christopher Rogers in 2006.

Rogers was chairman of Atlas Converting Equipment for more than 20 years. He will be retained by MWU as a consultant.

Apollo sells the CTS single-knife and TSK twin-knife sheeters, while MWU has sold 25 SheetWizard sheeters, demonstrated at the Drupa exhibition in Düsseldorf this week, in the past two years.

Barry-Wehmiller is a diversified global supplier of packaging, corrugating and paper converting technology.

The group's Hayssen Packaging Technologies division acquired Nottingham-based Sandiacre Rose Forgrove in January 2007 to create HayssenSandiacre, a supplier of form/fill/seal machinery for flexible packaging.

The group expects annual sales to reach more than $1bn (£500m) in 2008.