New US$ 15 million funding for MBA Polymers

USA – MBA Polymers, the multi-national clean-tech leader in recycling engineering plastics, has secured additional equity funding worth approximately US$ 15 million to boost its most recent financing round which began last summer to a total of around US$ 40 million. The money will be used to support the company’s existing operations and growth plans, including the building of new factories in Europe and Asia.
Ambienta I, Europe’s largest private equity fund specialising in environmental investments, is leading the latest funding and will become a significant minority shareholder in MBA Polymers.
Using proprietary processes, MBA Polymers recovers high-value plastics from complex waste streams, including from items such as household appliances, computers, business equipment and cars. The company separates these plastics from each other and from the residual waste to yield more energy-efficient plastics at a quality that can be virtually indistinguishable from virgin resins, it says.
Founded in 1993, MBA Polymers currently operates three facilities – in China, Austria and the UK – while its customers include top global brands in the electronics and appliance industries. The company generated approximately US$ 36 million in revenues during 2010, doubling its 2009 figure.
Richard McCombs, CEO of MBA Polymers, says of the latest developments: ‘We believe that Ambienta will provide strong strategic and operational value to MBA given its investment objectives and geographical location. With Ambienta SGR’s investment, MBA will be able to continue our aggressive growth to meet our customers’ needs for high-quality post-consumer recycled plastic.’
Nino Tronchetti Provera, CEO and founding partner of Ambienta SGR, will join the MBA Polymers board of directors. He comments: ‘Plastic not only accounts for almost 10% of the worldwide consumption of oil, but has also the lowest recycling rates of all high-value basic materials and represents probably the most problematic to handle as a waste. This is the reason we have been following MBA Polymers’ progress in the last years, and we believe that what the company has achieved is really remarkable.’