The rebrand comes six years after the group was taken over by US hedge funds and represents a move to disassociate the business from its founder and former owner Sean Quinn.
The name derives from Fear Manach, the origin of Fermanagh, “reflecting the company’s pride in their roots”, it said in a statement.
Sean Quinn is clearly not impressed by the move. “That company was 25 years old when any of those boys got involved. What right they seem to have to rebrand it, but that is entirely up to them. They weren’t even around,” he told the Irish Times. “Where they see the right to rebrand the company that they weren’t even part of putting together is hard to believe.”
Those boys are his former executives Liam McCaffrey, Kevin Lunney and Dara O’Reilly, with whom relations have deteriorated, reports suggest.
Quinn Industrial Holdings, which includes Quinn Building Products and Quinn Packaging, saw turnover dip 2.5% in 2019 to €234m (2018: €240m). Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation & amortisation (Ebitda) was little changed at €26.6m (2018: €26.4m).
Chief executive Liam McCaffrey said: “We are extremely pleased to unveil Mannok as our new brand identity, which we believe better reflects the ownership, evolution and future focus of our business. It marks a major milestone for us following a five-year transformation programme that has empowered our staff and repositioned our businesses for continuing growth and innovation. Our business is now in the strongest position since its acquisition in 2014 and Mannok is an appropriate and much more expansive brand proposition that reflects what our customers value most – a professional one-stop-shop for building and packaging solutions and the support of exceptional staff. They can certainly expect a lot more of that same quality offering we’ve become synonymous with, but ‘more of the same’ does not mean we’ll stand still, as we will continue to focus on developing and innovating with market leading, sustainable solutions.”
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