Research on Mpac Group PLC (MPAC:LON) from Tring Triangle
There is no sugarcoating the difficult trading environment revealed by Mpac Group in its 2025 results announcement. While the COVID playbook might help to navigate this, it is difficult to find a precedent where the administration of the world’s largest economy is trying to engineer a global recession ever since it came to power in 2025. It may yet abandon this path anytime and this is the main reason why our 2026 forecasts are unchanged. In any case, Mpac are not taking any chances and remain focused on productivity. We have been consistent in our view that investors should ignore cycles and focus on consolidation. Excess capacity and price competition will intensify this process. Syntegon, the fourth-largest packaging machinery manufacturer with 72,000 installed systems, has recently gained investment from Apollo which has acquired a 37% minority stake from CVC. Industry is also consolidating vertically with Apollo and KKR eyeing Logoplaste, the Portuguese packaging company. Zeus has acquired KOEX Packaging Solutions in Spain and formed a strategic collaboration with Engelmann & Buckham in automation. It is difficult to see Mpac, with over 6,500 machines in service, not being involved in this consolidation at a 40% discount to listed peers on EV/Sales basis.