Manufacturing the products
for more than 70 years, Eastman
is a world leader in the production of carboxylic acids for multiple markets, including food and feed,
pharmaceutical chemical intermediates,
and agriculture. Eastman offers a wide
variety of grades of acetic, propionic, butyric, isobutyric, benzoic, and 2-EH acids
appropriate for these and other end uses.
Kemira Acquires BASF AKD
Emulsion Business
BASF and Kemira today announced that
Kemira will acquire BASF’s global alkyl
ketene dimer (AKD) emulsion business.
The transaction is expected to close in the
first half of 2014.
“Kemira is a global leader in paper and
pulp chemistry and the leading supplier
of sizing products for the paper industry.
This acquisition of the AKD emulsion
business is one part in implementing our
strategy and will further strengthen our
possibilities to serve our Paper customers
especially on the continental European
market”, said Kenneth Nystén, Senior
Vice President, Regional Business Unit
Paper EMEA.
With this transaction BASF, the leading
supplier of paper chemistry, will further
optimize its paper chemicals portfolio
in order to focus on customer-oriented
products and solutions to improve the efficiency of paper machines and lower the
total cost of operation. “In line with our
recent announcement we have evaluated
all strategic options for the AKD emulsion business and found an excellent partner in Kemira who will ensure a smooth
transition and uninterrupted supply of
customers”, said Andreas Tuerk, Senior
Vice President, Paper Chemicals Europe.
The parties have agreed not to disclose
financial details of the agreement.
BASF to Focus on
Information Services,
Supply Chain Operations
and Business Processes
BASF Business Services Holding GmbH
will in future focus on providing infor-
mation services, supply chain operations
and business process management solu-
tions exclusively for BASF Group. These
include consulting, development and op-
eration of IT systems as well as the de-
sign of business processes along the value
chain. Following this strategic decision,
the company will not continue its busi-
ness with third party customers, which
has sales in the low double-digit mil-
lion euro range. BASF Business Services
Holding GmbH has thus signed an agree-
ment to sell its third party business in-
cluding the 100%-owned subsidiary
BASF Business Services Consult GmbH,
based in Hamburg, to Tech Mahindra
GmbH, Düsseldorf, a German subsidiary
of Tech Mahindra Limited, India, a pro-
vider of IT solutions and services.
Legal closing of the transaction is expected in the second quarter of 2014. All
60 employees of BASF Business Services
Consult GmbH are included in the transaction and retain their employment contracts with the company. Further details
of the transaction were not disclosed.
Nubiola Expands Production of Zinc
Ferrites Inorganic Pigments
Nubiola will expand production of
its Nubifer K Series, zinc ferrites inor-
ganic pigments. Nubiola has decided to
make a significant investment to increase
their production capacity by approxi-
mately 33 percent. This expansion will
be fully implemented in the last quarter
of 2014. Zinc Ferrites, Nubifer K Series,
are beige, tan color complex inorganic
pigments with a ZnFe2O4 spinel crystal
structure that withstand high tempera-
tures, besides providing excellent light,
weather and chemical fastness, and high
dimensional stability in Polyolefins, hid-
ing power and opacity.
“Two Zinc Ferrites within our prod-
uct range are especially worth men-
tioning: Nubifer Y-905K and Nubifer
Y-805K, being the latter the most heat
stable Zinc Ferrite in the whole market
(it withstands 300°C for five minutes in
Polypropylene),” said Fabiana Requeijo,
Global Iron Oxides product manager.
“Their excellent high temperature fast-
ness makes them suitable for Plastics
applications, as well as for their use in
Powder, Coil and Stoving Coatings. They
are a perfect solution to develop heat sta-
ble beige or tan colors, as well as weath-
erable “natural” green shades with good
opacity in combination with Organic
Blues and Greens. The coloration cost
of red and brown color shades based on
High Performance Organic Reds can also
be significantly reduced when introduc-
ing Nubifer K Series in the formulation
because our Zinc Ferrites can partially
replace Organics whilst maintaining their
bright shade and high performance.”
Magritek Announces
Company Expansion
Magritek announced further expansion
in company activities worldwide. With
offices now in the U.S., Germany and
New Zealand, the company has added
experienced leaders in instrumentation
sales and product marketing. With increased growth in worldwide markets
for benchtop-sized analytical techniques,
Magritek, leading providers of compact
NMR and MRI systems, are pleased to
be announcing the addition of two experienced industry professionals to their
sales and marketing team. Silverio (Sal)
Iacono is to head up the company’s sales
operations worldwide. Iacono has spent
his career leading sales and marketing
teams for analytical tools such as in his
most recent role as vice president and
general manager of PerkinElmer’s mass
spectrometry business. With nearly 25
years working in the scientific community, he arrives at Magritek enthusiastic
to help further build the company into
a world-leading business. Joining him
is another spectroscopy veteran. John
Paul Cerroti has worked in analytical
instrumentation for nearly thirty years.
With a background in materials science, Cerroti has held senior sales and
marketing roles for many of the leading innovators in spectroscopy tools
including PerkinElmer, Renishaw and
Oxford Instruments. Cerroti is based at
the Magritek European headquarters in
Aachen, Germany. In welcoming these
new members to his team, Magritek CEO,
Andrew Coy, is excited by the experience
and open-minded, fresh ideas joining the
company. “As we have built the organization over the last ten years, we have
experienced steady growth. However,
since we launched the Spinsolve family
of NMR spectrometers, we have seen a
