Rapid Granulator AB Closing French Facility

Rapid Granulator AB, a manufacturer of plastics grinding equipment that is headquartered in Bredaryd, Sweden, announced plans to close its Moditec subsidiary, which is based in Lyon, France. The decision to close the operation is part of Rapid Granulator’s restructuring plan, first announced late last year.

Rapid acquired the Moditec business in 2007 in order to develop its position in screen-less granulators. Rapid will continue to offer its own line of screen-less granulators and provide support to customers who already own Moditec-branded products.

France is the third largest polymer consumer in Europe and is an important market for the Rapid Group. Rapid saw strong development in its activities in the French market in the last quarter of 2009 and beginning of 2010.

Reflecting its interest in growing its presence in the French market, at the beginning of this year, Rapid increased its stake in its French sales and service company Albro Technologies from 20 percent to 100 percent in order to strengthen the company’s distribution capability and access for French customers to its product portfolio. Albro sells a range of auxiliary products to the French plastic producers, ncluding Rapid granulators, shredders and screen-less machines.

“We are confident in our ability to continue to serve this important market, and believe we will be able to do this even more effectively in the future through Rapid as full owners of Albro,” says Rolf Gren, Rapid’s CEO.

“We have committed to some very difficult decisions to secure the financial status of the Rapid Granulator AB since announcing the reconstruction process on October 23, 2009,” Gren adds. “However, I am pleased to report that support for our customers has been unaffected during these changes and we are already seeing a strengthening of our operations. We anticipate being through the reconstruction within a short period of time.”