Europe
been the continued attraction of Europe
to non-European coatings companies
wanting to expand in the region. In
Decembe Kansai Paint Group of Japan
signed an agreement to take 100 percent
control of Slovenia-based Helios Group
with around €400 million ($425 million)
in annual sales, most of them in Europe.
Kansai, which has a relatively limited presence in Europe has ambitions
to extend its operations across the region through Helios. “We want to develop Helios to be a strong European
center of innovation, with the best
knowledge and expertise in different
segments of coatings,” said Hiroshi
Ishino, Kansai’s president.
Another major acquisition last year
was AkzoNobel’s €475 million takeover
of BASF Coatings’ industrial coatings
operation, which included coil, furniture
foil and panel coatings, as well as coatings for wind energy plants, general industry and commercial transport.
For AkzoNobel the purchase,
which was completed in December,
strengthened its strong market position in coil coatings.
It can also now offer a package of
wind turbine coatings including BASF’s
high performance blade coatings. “We
are now able to offer a complete range
for on – and offshore wind turbines with
coatings for both the towers and the
blades,” said Conrad Keijzer, member
of AkzoNobel’s executive committee responsible for performance coatings.
An increase in wind energy coatings sales could now offset decreases in
AkzoNobel’s revenue from coatings for
the oil and gas exploration sector.
For BASF, the sale of its industrial coat-
ings operation is part of a radical strate-
gic initiative centered on its $3.2 billion
acquisition of Albemarle Corporation’s
Chemetall global surface treatment busi-
ness, which took place in parallel with the
industrial coatings divestment.
Chemetall, which is now being integrated as a separate business unit in BASF
Coatings following the completion of the
takeover in December, provides customised surface-treatment solutions. These
protect metals from corrosion, facilitate
forming and machining, prepare parts for
the painting process and ensure proper
coating adhesion.
The acquisition fits in well with BASF’s
strategy of making its coatings and other
businesses primarily solution providers.
Without the industrial coatings business,
BASF Coatings will now be focused on
the OEM and refinishing automotive sectors. But the Chemetall takeover should
enable BASF Coatings to expand into
other segments, such as aerospace and
metal finishing.
“Combining the market leading expertise of Chemetall in surface treatment
and BASF’s know-how in coatings application, as well as chemistry, will accelerate the development of superior process
technologies for many different industries,” said a BASF spokesman.
In its construction chemicals operation, BASF has also been pursuing its
objective of establishing market positions
based on system solutions with a mix of
products including coatings.
The company agreed last September
to take over Henkel’s Western European
flooring, tiling and waterproofing business which includes coatings.
RPM International Inc. has been following a similar strategy with its coatings
and other subsidiaries in Europe by offering branded system solutions in the construction and buildings materials sectors.
The company has just combined eight
of its Europe-based and other subsidiaries
into The Euclid Group, which will be pro-
viding coatings and chemical technolo-
gies to the construction and engineering
sectors. One of the subsidiaries is the
UK-based Flowcrete a manufacturer of
resin-based flooring systems, speciality
floor and wall coating technologies, and
decorative concrete coatings.
In December RPM took over SPS
Group (SPS), a Dutch decorative and
specialty coatings company which it is
merging with its Rust-Oleum European
business for professionals providing paint
systems for metal, floor, roof, wall and
other surfaces in residential buildings.
Among raw material suppliers to
the European coatings sector, the biggest mergers have been among resin and
speciality polymer producers. Allnex,
formerly the coatings resin business of
Cytec Industries, has been combined
with the Australia-based resins manufacturer and distributor Nuplex Industries.
The headquarters of the new company,
called Allnex, is in Frankfurt, Germany.
Polynt of Italy and Reichold of the
U.S. have been merged to form a resins group with total annual global sales
of around €2 billion, a large proportion of which will be in coatings resins.
UK-based Synthomer plc, a speciality polymers and dispersions producer
for the coatings industry, has taken
over Hexion Performance Adhesives &
Coatings, a business of Hexion Inc. of
the US, with sales in 2015 of $350 million in products including dispersions
and powder coatings.
In the pigments market, producers
have been broadening their portfolios
with a greater emphasis on premium
products. In October Ferro Corporation
of the U.S., a major producer of inorganic
pigments, took over Cappelle Pigments of
Belgium, a specialist in high grade organic pigments.
Analysts reckon that a record level of
M&As last year in Europe and the rest
of the developed world was primarily
driven by low interest rates and access
to cheap money. With predictions that interest rates will rise in the wake of higher
inflation, the current spate of restructuring in the European coatings may not be
repeated for a while. CW
“...the impact on the coatings sector will not
be immediate, particularly with deals whose
effects will be global in scale.”
