Innovia to invest £20m after winning plastic bank note contract
CUMBRIA-based Innovia is to invest £20m and take on 80 staff after being confirmed as the producer of the Bank of England’s new plastic £5 and £10 notes.
The packaging business, which owns the bank note specialist Securency International, has long been tipped as a favourite for the contract.
Yesterday the Bank confirmed it would move to plastic notes in 2016 and said it expects to enter a contract with Innovia Security to supply the polymer material, in which case Innovia would establish a polymer production plant in Wigton, near Carlisle in 2016.
Innovia said the plant will require an investment of £20m, in addition to a £20m investment in its packaging facility announced in August. It will first supply the material for the Winston Churchill £5 note and the Jane Austen £10 note will follow a year later.
Chief executive David Beeby said: “We are very proud to have been selected as the preferred supplier of the polymer substrate for the new £5 and £10 bank notes. This decision not only recognises the benefits that polymer notes have to offer but also Innovia’s expertise in this field.”
The notes not be printed in Cumbria. The Bank said this contract is currently being tendered and it will continue to print at its printing works in Debden, Essex.
Innovia launched Securency as a joint venture with the Reserve Bank of Australia but took control in February. The group was established in October 2004, following the acquisition of the films business of the UCB Group by a consortium led by Dennis Matthewman and Candover Partners.
It is now held by Candover spinout Arle Capital Partners which is said to be in sale talks with Pamplona Capital Management, an investment fund backed by Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman.
