Sun Chemical to acquire Benda-Lutz Werke
Sun Chemical and its parent company, DIC,
have reached a definitive agreement to purchase Benda-Lutz Werke GmbH, a manufacturer of metallic effect products based in
Austria. The acquisition would allow Sun
Chemical and DIC to purchase 100 percent
of the shares, assets and business from
Benda-Lutz and would expand its product
portfolio in metallic effects. With the acquisition, Sun Chemical would add production facilities in Austria, Poland, Russia
and the U.S. to accompany its aluminum
pigment manufacturing site in China,
which would form the basis of a new global
Metallics Business Unit as part of Sun
Chemical’s Performance Pigments Division.
“This acquisition of Benda-Lutz will
enable Sun Chemical to further expand
our metallic effects offerings to our core
coatings, plastics and graphic arts mar-
kets, while accelerating growth in future
strategic areas such as specialties, cosmet-
ics and electronics,” said Myron Petruch,
president of Sun Chemical Performance
Pigments and Electronic Materials.
“Benda-Lutz has a reputation for its in-
novation in product and process technol-
ogy, and for providing outstanding quality
and service. We believe that this acquisi-
tion will enhance the service to our global
customer base and increase our global
footprint in pigments and effects.”
“As a 102-year-old family business,
Benda-Lutz has rapidly grown over the last
25 years from a European to a global
provider, and we look forward to leveraging
Sun Chemical and DIC’s capabilities to grow
Benda-Lutz’s unique products and technolo-
gies in the marketplace,” said Martin Lutz,
managing director of Benda-Lutz Werke.
Sun Chemical and Benda-Lutz expect to
close the acquisition in the third quarter of
2012. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Momentive starts production
at its VeoVa vinyl ester
monomer plant in Shanxi,
China
Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Inc. has
started production at its VeoVa vinyl
ester monomer plant in Shanxi province
of China. This plant, a production joint
venture with Shanxi Sanwei Group Co.,
Ltd., provides a second manufacturing
location for VeoVa monomer, increasing
current monomer capacity by approximately 30 percent, and easing supply
constraints for growing global demand.
Commercial quantities of VeoVa
monomer will become available for shipment in the third quarter. VeoVa
monomer is a vinyl ester of Versatic acid,
which is copolymerizable with vinyl acetate, ethylene and acrylates to provide a
variety of functional benefits to water-based decorative paints, wood stains and
coatings, adhesives and redispersible
powders for construction applications.
Solvay inaugurates RD&T
Center in India
Solvay recently inaugurated its new Research, Development and Technology
Center at Savli, Gujarat State, India. The
Center will focus its efforts mainly on
the development of high performance
polymers, organic chemistry, nano composites and green chemistry. Housed in a
new and high-performance sustainable
building, it will employ more than 200
researchers when fully operational. The
RD&T Center will tap the country’s
huge innovation talent potential and
carry out open innovation in collaboration with premier institutes in India. The
Center has also established three fellowships for research in sustainable
chemistry, nano technology and polymer
science at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara. The Solvay Group
has been active in India since 2000.
With seven production sites and approximately 900 employees in the country, it principally manufactures specialty
polymers, engineering plastics, surfactants and special chemicals. The Group
generated €180 million of net sales in
India last year and has the ambition to
double its sales in the country within the
next 3 years.
European Commission clears
Eastman’s acquisition of
Solutia
The European Commission has cleared,
under the EU Merger Regulation, the
proposed acquisition of Solutia Inc. by
Eastman Chemical Company, both U.S.-based chemical companies. The Commission’s investigation concluded that the
transaction would not raise competition
concerns because the parties are not active on the same markets and will continue to face sufficient competition. The
Commission’s investigation examined the
competitive effects arising from the vertical relationship between Eastman’s upstream supply of 2-ethylhexanoic Acid
(“2-EHA”) and Solutia’s downstream
supply of plasticizers for use in polyvinyl
butyral (“PVB”) sheet.
Elementis Specialties expands
TMC Materials’ territory
Elementis Specialties has expanded the
territory of its East Coast distributor
TMC Materials. Effective September 1,
2012, TMC Materials will serve coatings
and inks customers in Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. TMC Materials currently represents Elementis
Specialties in Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Delaware and Maryland.
BYK Additives and Instruments
opens new lab building in
Wesel
As part of its global marketing and sales
conference and the site’s 50th anniversary,
BYK Additives and Instruments opened a
new lab building in Wesel, Germany. The
facility constitutes 8,000 square meters of
lab space and 130 jobs have been created.
Since the end of 2011, approximately 80
