IPL Plastics’ investors clear the way for IPO next month

A NUMBER of the 2,000 Irish shareholders in IPL Plastics, formerly known as One51, intend to remain on the register until divided repayments restart, underscoring the depth of loyalty to the resurgent company as it bears down on a initial public offering in Toronto.

According to banking sourc- es, some local investors are inquiring about shareholder payments even though the provisional prospectus states the company does not anticipate paying cash dividends on its securities “in the foreseeable future”.

IPL Plastics yesterday won overwhelming support from investors to execute a corporate overhaul aimed at facilitating next month’s IPO in a move that delivers on a pledge first made a decade ago, when Philip Lynch was at the helm.

Yesterday, at the company’s egm and agm in Dublin, chief executive Alan Walsh stressed that the Irish shareholder base, which is dominated by co-ops who have clung on since the IAWS days, remains enthusiastic.

Mr Walsh said few investors are displaying interest in a share buyback that offers an opportunity to leap out at the same valuation as the IPO price. “No one’s in a rush to the exit door,” he said.

The Canadian listing will water down investors’s stakes to less than 50pc. Currently the largest stakeholders are Fonds de Solidarite FTQ (FSTQ), a Canadian government agency which backs investment in Quebec and Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) a long-term institutional investor that manages funds for the Canadian public sector.

While local investors have endured a turbulent ride as the company ballooned into an over-sized conglomerate and then thinned out again to become a plastics manufacturer, its fortunes finally appear to be on the rise.

While the company chalked up a 46pc increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) last year to €70.9m, that figure is projected to rise to €72.7m-€79.4m by 2021, according to the projections included the prospectus.