What had been a research and development company, recently boosted its profile after raising $225 million through an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange. RM2 International intends to launch a major pallet pool of 20 million pallets or more in both North America and Europe. In conjunction with the IPO, the company purchased the provider of the tracking technology that RM2 has utilized, Track Asset, Control Spend system.
Getting the right pallet into the marketplace is not easy and RM2 spent more than $10 million developing its pallet design and process. Instead of going head-to-head in the grocery retail sector with the major rental poolers, RM2 intends to both sell and rent pallets to the upstream logistics operations of large manufacturing, distribution and retail businesses.
Key markets include food manufacturing, beverage, electronics, pharmaceutical, and other sectors, particularly those with high turnover and/or sanitation concerns. It seems that many of RM2’s potential customers likely used wooden pallets, particularly white-wood since it is not going after the fast moving consumer goods retail operations.
Currently, RM2 offers BLOCKPal™, a 48×40 block design that boasts a high strength to weight ratio and has very good levels of impact strength for long service life. BLOCKPal meets UL2335 standards for fire retardancy without using a chemical fire retardant. It weighs about 50lbs. and is made from a mixture of glass fiber and resin composites.
One of the big benefits of the technology used by RM2 is that it can develop special sizes and designs at a much lower cost than traditional plastics.
“We believe that our pallet will have longevity characteristics that are unheard of in the market today,” said John Walsh, the CEO of RM2. This is because the glass fiber provides tremendous longitudinal strength. It is rated for 3,600 lbs. although it can carry much more than that.
RM2 thinks it has built a top quality pallet design that has answered traditional challenges for composite pallets, such as brittleness and abrasion.
Currently, RM2 has a manufacturing facility in Canada and is looking to build a second facility in the United States over the coming year. For more information on RM2, visit www.rm2.com.
