Victrex, originally a management buyout from ICI, has been a spectacular success for those who bought into its flotation in 1995. Variants of PEEK, its versatile plastic polymer, are used in thousands of components in the aviation, oil and gas and automobile sectors.
PEEK is the caviar of plastics. A kilogram of its granules costs an average of £63.80, up from £62.50 a year ago. The upside for Victrex is that the margins are some of the best in the chemicals industry; the downside is that customers look for cheaper substitutes.
That partly explains the 5 per cent slide in revenues from the core polymers division. The big disappointment in the year to September was the 29 per cent fall in volume demand from the