March 2, 2009
Against the worldwide trend of short time working, staff reduction and plant closures, trade moulder Holloid Plastics has extended its working hours, is increasing employment and is planning to open a new factory.
     Holloid is a long-established name in injection moulding, having been set up as a family-owned company in 1952. And it remained family-owned until the end of last year when Henning von Spreckelsen, a founder and director of Bapco Closures, bought a majority stake. Since then Holloid has started 24 hour shift working and added an in-house design facility, has increased the 30-strong staffing by 10 per cent, and has seen sales since the new year increase "significantly" over the last few months of last year.
     Mr von Spreckelsen told British Plastics & Rubber that some of the business growth is coming from a reversal of the drift to the Far East. He said the combination of the strength of the US dollar against Sterling, shipping costs and working capital lead time made manufacturing in Britain more attractive. And in the case of Holloid, which with his added investment had a strong balance sheet, it was able to meet the desires of customers looking for strength of suppliers against the background of economic unrest. Less than 3 per cent of Holloid's business is in automotive.
     Holloid went through a change in structure in 2005 when Julian van Wyngaarden bought out his brother Peter to take control of the company. Peter van Wyngaarden retains ownership of the Basingstoke site, and Julian van Wyngaarden is still with the company, handling research and development. That realignment took place after a year's investment of around £500,000 in six Krauss-Maffei injection moulding machines and a number of Stäubli robots. It is in particular the investment in six-axis robots that Henning von Spreckelsen sees as underlying Holloid's competitiveness against Chinese moulders.
     One of the machines bought in 2005 was 650 tonnes and the company is now looking to go bigger and expand. Mr von Spreckelsen said it is "looking out for an 850 tonne for Basingstoke" and within a few months he planned to start investigating a site for a second factory. This will have machines of 1,000 tonnes upwards. Investment in the plant, he said, would come from private money, although he stressed that the company's bank is supportive.