DONGGUAN, CHINA — Plastics machinery supplier Guangdong Yizumi Precision Machinery Co. Ltd. plans to go public.
Capital raised in a proposed initial public offering will be invested in research and development and possibly to build more production capacity, said Jin Hui, CEO assistant and project director with Yizumi's all-electric department.
Jin said the company is aiming for a listing on the Shenzhen stock exchange in the fourth quarter of 2015.
In the meantime, strong sales growth averaging 20 percent annually over the past five years has prompted the company to move forward with plans to expand its new Wusha factory, a 10-minute drive from its headquarters in Shunde. The expansion is set to go online in second quarter 2015, Jin said.
Stage one of the project, with 870,000 square feet of space, opened last year.
With an eye on serving customers on China's east coast, the company opened a facility in Suzhou, near Shanghai, last year, to manufacture injection molding machines and to provide sales and service.
Yizumi entered the booming robotics market this year and has already sold 20 million RMB (about $3 million) of automation equipment, Jin said.
The company's sales of all plastics machinery were 700 million RMB ($113 million) last year. Total sales, including die-casting and rubber processing equipment, reached 1.2 billion RMB ($195 million).
Plastics News China interviewed Jin at the Dongguan International Plastics, Packaging & Rubber Exhibition, held Nov. 19-22. Yizumi showed three all-electric injection presses at the show: the 60-ton FE60S, the 120-ton FE120S and the 260-ton FE260S.
Mainland China still comprises 80 percent of Yizumi's annual sales, but exports are up, especially to emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Brazil, Jin said. Yizumi bought the intellectual property of bankrupt American plastics and die-casting equipment maker HPM in 2011, and opened a technical service center in the United States.
In addition to expanding in China, the company also is investing in North America. HPM North America Corp. is opening a new facility, a 40,000-square-foot showroom in Marion, Ohio. HPM President William Flickinger said the company will run a new 1,100-ton two-platen press at an open house Dec. 9-11.
Plastics News senior reporter Bill Bregar contributed to this report.