OUR SUCCESES
SUMMARY
| Sector | Plastic recycling |
| Location | UK |
| Stage | Growth Private Equity |
| Return | >10x unrealised |
PARTNERS
Most plastics get used once and the majority of this material is either landfilled or incinerated. This hard-to-recycle plastic is mainly food packaging and laminated or flexible materials and represents a lost resource. Annually, about 8% of oil and gas production is used to make plastic and 95% of these plastics are single use ultimately resulting in that energy being lost.
If this material can be recycled, it can dramatically increase the circularity of plastics and provide a substitute for the virgin fossil oil and gas in the manufacture of plastics, thus delivering a close to net zero production path for new plastic.
Armstrong identified a new technology, hydrothermal liquefaction, as the most advantageous conversion technology, and subsequently formed a joint venture with the technology originator, Licella pty: Mura Technology*.
Mura has developed this technology, which we call HydroPRS, to bring it to commercial-scale operations. It has formed strategic partnerships with some of the world’s premier companies in engineering and petrochemicals, having received equity backing from KBR, Dow, LG Chem and Chevron Philips Chemical Corp.
In total, Mura has raised over £150 million to build its business. Mura is now the world leading licensor of advanced recycling technology, with industry leaders such as Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation and LG Chem both building recycling facilities based on the HydroPRS technology.
Mura is now developing its own plants in Europe and the USA, with its first commercial facility due to begin operations this year in Teesside.
The original seed investors were Armstrong HNW clients and they have seen a >10x growth in share price over a 4 year period. As Mura continues to build capacity and operations, it expects to seek an IPO within a 2 to 3 year time period, assuming market conditions are favourable at that time.
