Insperial Group has acquired MGR Foamtex, a leading European manufacturer of advanced passenger upholstery systems.
The company will continue to operate under its current leadership, with David Howgego as managing director and former owner and chief executive Les Simpson remaining on the board. The deal was signed between Simpson and Alexis Gabillon, group chief executive of Insperial Group and celebrated at AIX with a celebratory ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Gabillon explained what Insperial particularly liked about MGR when the approach was made to the latter. “I really love their products that are a mix of performance and design. You have beautiful soft walls which bring a very nice design touch to business class seat or panels with features like insulations and noise cancellation. They combine materials to create a product which adds to the passenger experience,” he said.
Simpson says what convinced him that this was the way forward for MGR was Insperial Group having the same type of approach to the marketplace as MGR. “We want to be dynamic, we want to grow, so marrying the companies together gives us a greater scope for our products into the marketplace,” he says.
The portfolio that MGR brings to the Insperial Group covers anything within the interior which has got a soft touch and that is where the new set-up aims to expand its product offering.
“That’s where we’ve made our mark in terms of the different products we have and the one which is key at the moment is the soft wall,” Howgego says. ”These are the liners that go in the back of the business class seats, whereas prior to that they were hard surfaces. We actually offer something that when you touch it, it feels soft. It’s more in keeping with where you should be. If you’re in your home, you don’t want to lean against something and find it hard. It’s all soft, where you’re sitting. That’s how we want it to be on an aircraft.”
Gabillon sees it all as complementary because Insperial is aiming to bringing surface technologies to a new level of customisation. “That is exactly the purpose of Inspire. I was mentioning the dream of Inspire is to bring to the market customisation and functions, and enhancements to any surface in an aircraft,” he says.
