AkzoNobel Paint Giant Sells Paper Chemicals Business

The Dutch giant, AkzoNobel Paint, has confirmed the sale of its Paper Chemicals business for £110M to Kemira

Kemira finalised the purchase of the business from AkzoNobel Paint on May 4th 2015. The sale was first announced back in July 2014 and is widely considered to be a divestment by AkzoNobel Paint. The deal, worth £110M (€153m / $170.5m), will enable the global company to focus on other products including expandable microspheres, colloidal silica and bleaching chemicals.

In 2013 Paper Chemicals generated a healthy revenue of around £175M for AkzoNobel Paint. Kemira’s acquisition of the business is a sound investment for the Finland-based chemical group. Kemira plans to expand and bolster its existing interest in global paper chemicals production. It will acquire production facilities in South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Spain and Italy.

Despite the sale of Paper Chemicals, AkzoNobel will continue to have a solid foothold within the paper pulp sector. The Paper Chemicals business does not include AkzoNobel’s Pulp Bleaching and Colloidal Silica businesses. Under the EKA brand it will remain as one of the top suppliers of bleaching pulp chemicals across the world.

Says Niek Stapel, AkzoNobel Pulp and Performance Chemicals managing director : “This is another important step in our strategy to focus on leading positions in bleaching chemicals, colloidal silica and expandable microspheres.”

Paper Chemicals currently employ just over 350 staff. There are no plans to decrease this number at present. We would assume that Kamira would need to increase this number as they plan to increase production. However this is speculation at present and we will await further announcements from Kamira in the coming months. Brands such as Bindzil, Expancel, Kromasil and Levasil will also be included in the deal. You can read more about this at Chemicals Technology News and get in-depth financial analysis of the transaction at NASDAQ.

About AkzoNobel

AkzoNobel manufacture decorative and industrial paints along with a large range of specialist chemicals. These chemicals are found in everyday items such as plastic tooth brushes, televisions computers and clothing. Their coatings are used in domestic paint and industrial paint alike. AkzoNobel coatings are used on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Beijing Olympic Stadiums to name but a few.

Akzo Nobel N.V. officially trade as AkzoNobel and have their global HQ in Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. They currently have approximately 47,000 employees with sales of over £10 billion worldwide. The company was only founded in 1994 and has expanded rapidly over the last 20 years. The company is currently made up of 10 businesses and a 7 member committee of executives. Their main areas of business are Decorative paints, Performance coatings and Speciality chemicals.

About Kamira

Founded in 1920 and officially trading as Kemira Oyj, this is a much older and well established corporation. With sales of £1,614 billion it dwarfs that of AkzoNobel. However profits for 2013 were announced to be at a loss of -£23 million. The acquisition of Lanxess’s pulp and paper chemical operations in 2009 helped make Kamira the worlds largest provider of the pulp and paper chemicals. The State of Finland currently holds 16.5% of Kemira’s shares.

D&D Coatings & AkzoNobel

Here at D&D Coatings we have been using products manufactured by AkzoNobel for many years. One of which includes Steelseal. We use Steelseal on wall cladding coating projects due to its superior quality and robust resistance to corrosion. In addition to AkzoNobel products, our coating of choice for warehouse floor painting projects is Flowcrete. They are two very different but very reliable products.

More news from the Coatings Industry coming soon and thanks for reading!