Blog post - 21 February 2014 12:26

CASE STUDY: Primepac Solutions Ltd

Primepac Solutions is a wholly employee owned company of 22 people with a turnover that has increased from £370k in 2006 to £1.8million.

PrimePac Solutions Ltd, is a worker co-operative that fills bottles, sachets and tubes for clients including leading brands in the health and personal care sector.

The co-operative was formed when their parent company decided to withdraw from Wales following a major fire which destroyed their packing facilities. Until the fire in 2005, 140 people were employed by Budelpack Rumney.

When the news broke that the company was not going to reinvest in the area, a group of employees contacted the management of Tower Colliery, who had famously formed a worker co-operative to buy their pit from the National Coal Board, who pointed them in the direction of the Wales Co-operative Centre.

Knowing Budelpack’s strategy of high volumes and low margins the group were able to put together a business plan based on low volumes and high margins and staff members decided to invest their redundancy payment into setting up a new employee owned company.

19 employees were needed to start up the new company and they were oversubscribed by 100%. After much negotiation, the employees managed to purchase necessary equipment from Budelpack and began trading in October 2005.

The company now employs 22 permanent staff and between 10 and 20 temporary staff. With manufacturing jobs on the decline in Wales the staff were keen to preserve their livelihoods and keep jobs in the local area. The Wales Cooperative Centre provided legal and business planning advice and helped the company access funding from Co-operative and Community Finance, Finance Wales and the Welsh Government.

“Establishing our business cooperatively means that all employees feel that they can become masters of their own destiny and develop our company into a real success story for South Wales”, commented Steve Meredith, Managing Director of PrimePac Solutions Ltd. Since 2007,

PrimePac Solutions Ltd has seen a year on year increase in both turnover and budget.

Topics

Economy, Finance

Regions

Wales

Contacts

David Madge

Press contact Marketing, Press & Public Affairs Officer Press and Public Affairs. Marketing (primarily Succession and Consortia Project). david.madge@walescooperative.org 01792484005

Catherine Evans

Press contact Marketing Manager Overall responsibility for marketing and communications at the Wales Co-operative Centre catherine.evans@walescooperative.org 01443 743943

Mark Smith

Press contact Marketing Officer Social Media, Case Studies and Communities 2.0 mark.smith@walescooperative.org 029 2055 6163

Chief Executive of Wales’ leading co-operative development organisation welcomes Welsh Co-operatives and Mutuals Commission Report

Derek Walker, the Chief Executive of the Wales Co-operative Centre, welcomed today’s publication of the report of the Welsh Commission on Co-operatives and Mutuals. The Wales Co-operative Centre was set up in 1982 and supports the development of co-operatives and social enterprises across the country.