Hungary: Masterplast has concluded an agreement to acquire Pimco. Pimco is in the process of establishing a Euro35.7m, 20,000t/yr glass wool plant at Szerencs, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County. Növekedés News has reported that an advance investment by Masterplast in the company will enable Pimco's Szerencs plant project to move into the implementation phase. It would then enter production in 2024. Masterplast will fund the investment using the proceeds of its Euro23.3m stock market capital raising in October 2022. The upcoming Szerencs plant was previously the subject of a Euro35.7m grant from the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency.

Masterplast employs 1400 people across 10 countries.

Austria: Austrotherm has invested Euro20m on an upgrade to its extruded polystyrene (XPS) production capacity at its Purbach insulation plant. The project added a production hall with new extrusion technology supplied by Germany-based KraussMaffei Group. The expansion has also created 20 new jobs at the site. A further upgrade to the plant will be built in 2023 when a photovoltaic system will be installed on the roof of the hall.

UK: State-owned Scottish National Investment Bank has granted Euro2.26m in funding to Industrial Nature for the development of its IndiTherm hemp-based insulation. Industrial Nature is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

UK: Graffiti reading 'Grenfell' has appeared on walls and gates at the entrance to Ulster Rugby's Kingspan Stadium in Belfast in protest against Kingpan's indirect involvement in the Grenfell Tower fire in London on the night of 13 - 14 June 2017. Some insulation produced by Kingspan was present in the building envelope of the tower at that time.

The Belfast Telegraph newspaper has reported that local groups Act Now and Uplift in the Republic, in partnership with Britain-based 38 Degrees, previously erected a billboard in view of the Kingspan Stadium, expressing solidarity with victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster, in March 2022.