Kingspan unit received multimillion euro grant from Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland handed a unit of Kingspan a €4.6 million grant for “a serious disturbance in the economy”, new European Commission filings show.

The grant was made by Enterprise Ireland to Kingspan Insulation Limited as part of a wider post-Covid stimulus fund which was last year thrown open to a number of manufacturers in Ireland.

Other recipients included C&D Foods, a company owned by Larry Goodman’s ABP Food Group, which got €5 million; forklift manufacturer Combilift, which was given €2.77 million; Grant Engineering, which got €2.32 million; and William Connolly & Son, which received €1.55 million.

The funding was aimed at providing capital funds for companies who were “affected by the pandemic due to factors including higher uncertainty, supply side constraints on investment (eg, shortages in raw materials, labour) and worsening financial conditions for firms”, according to a spokesperson for Enterprise Ireland.

The funding scheme provided grant aid of up to €5 million per project and ended in December. Qualifying projects included capital investments that reduced carbon intensity through carbon abatement technologies, or projects that increased productivity through investment in digitalisation technologies.

It is not clear whether the funds relate to any specific project or whether any of the money has been drawn down yet.

“Kingspan welcomes this grant approval which relates to a potential multimillion euro manufacturing investment being considered by Kingspan,” a company spokesman said in response to questions from The Irish Times.

In January of this year, a number of months after the grant was awarded, Eamon Ryan visited Kingspan’s headquarters in Kingscourt, Co Cavan. According to an entry in the lobbying database, he was there for a ”general discussion on construction materials and environmental impacts” and for “information sharing on Kingspan’s projects in decarbonisation and circularity”.

Last month Kingspan, which has a market capitalisation of €16.3 billion, said in a trading statement that its sales had dropped marginally in the last financial quarter, warning that costs of materials could rise again in the near future.

It said its group sales for the period were close to €2 billion for the three-month period, which was 1 per cent behind prior year’s sales.

The company said that trading volumes overall were “positive” with pricing “stable” since the turn of the year albeit behind year-on-year reflecting lower raw material prices.

European sales had been “seasonally subdued for the most part”; central and eastern Europe remained “regionally tough”; the Middle East and India had strong sales growth; while trading in the Americas was in line with the previous year’s strong start.