We generate a lot of waste PP and OPP film, and are thinking of setting up a division to recycle it, along with waste film from other printers and packaging plants. Isn’t there a government scheme that will give financial assistance to companies installing recycling equipment?

You’re thinking of the eQuip scheme, which helps recycling companies to secure the equipment they need. The scheme, which is essentially a Residual Value Guarantee (RVG), was set up in 2004 by the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap), and in a nutshell it guarantees the future residual value of the machinery that you need to install in order to recycle.

eQuip has set up a panel of banks and leasing companies who lease to printers as well as other types of manufacturing business. Leasing is effectively an additional line of credit for your business, allowing you to spread payments over a fixed term related to the life of the equipment. Terms are negotiable – including fixed or variable rates of interest – and they can be tailored to meet your expected cashflow. Lease facilities can be beneficial in that they are generally not repayable on demand, and they aren’t subject to annual reviews, so as long as you make payments and honour the contract, the lease is secure.
Under eQuip, Wrap will guarantee the future value of the equipment you lease, which has the effect of reducing regular payments.

To qualify for eQuip, your business must meet certain criteria. For printers, it must include sorting, reprocessing or recycling substrates. You must also demonstrate what Wrap calls “strong market demand” for your product, or that you are using the newest and most advanced print technology. However, if you plan to use the leased kit for producing fuels or energy for use in your factory, you also won’t qualify.
eQuip has been designed to process applications as quickly as possible: applications for kit costing up to £250,000 are processed within a month.

For more information, you can contact the scheme’s administrators, Cranmer Lawrence, on 01494 689500 or email equip@cranmerlawrence, or alternatively you can find more information on the Wrap website: www.wrap.org.uk.
Ian Wardle

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We’re about to take the plunge to acquire a fellow sheetfed printer, and we’re thinking of financing it using asset-based lending. I believe the regulations are changing for this sort of lending – how, and what are the implications for us?

Asset-based lending (ABL) is a means of providing funding based on your existing assets, be that plant, premises or debtors.

There are no planned changes linked directly to ABL, but there are some changes due in April to Capital Gains taxation and in October to the Companies Act.

The change to Capital Gains tax is a change to the ‘taper relief’ from 10% to 18%, and this directly affects the seller of a company. However, it remains to be seen whether the change will be fully implemented.

There are also many changes as a result of the amendments made to the Companies Act. One of the proposed changes is the abolition, for any private limited company, of two processes known as Financial Assistance and Whitewash. In short, this means it will now be easier for one firm to buy shares in another.

You may have heard of another significant change in regulation which concerns banks – it is called Basle 2. Basle 2 requires banks to allocate capital in accordance with the level of risk they are entering into. The calculations are complicated and are based on a combination of the borrower potentially defaulting and the resultant potential credit loss. For example, loans made available directly against assets rather than cashflows carry a lower allocation of capital, as the level of potential recovery would be greater.

However, it is important to note that these changes do not directly affect the borrower.

As ABL has developed as a funding solution, so has the range of other services offered by some of the
more innovative lenders. For example, some lenders, including KBC Business Capital, now provide banking facilities alongside their debt finance packages to provide a more integrated solution.
Graham Baker

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What is a flat-topped dot? We’re a flexo printer producing high-quality flexible packaging, and we’ve heard it gives good quality results. Can someone explain?

The face of a flexo printing plate is the surface that receives ink from the anilox roll and transfers it to the substrate, and the more precise the halftone dot, the better the print quality. On the plate, ideally each individual halftone dot should flex up and down like a shock-absorber, transferring ink only from its face to the substrate. A ‘flat-topped’ dot with a sharp edge provides the perfect ink target. Unfortunately, most flexo plates aren’t capable of delivering ink from only the face of the dot, as most have a rounded dot profile produced by current plate production methods.

This is especially so for digitally-produced flexo plates, which are supplied with a carbon and wax mask that is ablated by the laser imager in the print area, revealing the raw photopolymer; after this the plate is exposed to UV light, polymerising the plate material. Unfortunately, this process retards the polymerisation and the effect is that the face of the dot forms in an incomplete way, especially around the edges. In fact, if the ablated area of a halftone dot is less than 7% in size, the halftone dot may not quite reach the surface of a complete plate.

A flat-topped dot permits a wider ‘sweet spot’ on-press, has minimal dot gain and virtually eliminates ‘fluting’ when printing on corrugated board. And the increased relief depth provides greater longevity, especially for printers using thinner plates.

The good news is that PRPflexo has developed a system to optimise digital flexo plate production, yielding a flat-topped dot. Plates can be made from any conventional digital plate material in any calliper, at any line screen and in sizes up to 1,200 x 2,000mm. The process has a patent application pending and the firm is also offering free print trials of its plate system. For more information visit www.prpflexo.com.
Christopher Green