News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

September 20, 2010

Evonik to Divest Carbon Black Business

Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 7:52 am

Evonik Industries announced today that it planned to divest its carbon black business. Below is the main text of the press release.

Evonik sets the course for the future of its carbon blacks business

Decision to divest the global carbon blacks business

Strong position opens up new perspectives

Essen. Evonik Industries has decided to divest its carbon blacks business. Klaus Engel, Chairman of the Executive Board of Evonik Industries AG: “Our declared aim is to find a solution that is equally convincing for customers, employees and business partners. The decision to divest this business provides the best basis for sustained investment in carbon blacks, new growth prospects and for securing future-oriented jobs in the long-term.”

Evonik’s carbon blacks business ranks second in the world and has strong and established brands. It has 1,700 employees in twelve countries and sales of around €1 billion. Carbon black is an attractive business. Following the sharp market downturn during the crisis in 2009, this year earnings will rebound to the good level registered in 2008. Klaus Engel: “We are actively utilizing the opportunities offered by this strong position to open up new perspectives for the carbon black activities. Now is the right time to extend and secure their global presence through a change of ownership.”

About 80 percent of Evonik’ chemicals business ranks among the market leaders. The Group adopted a new strategic focus at the end of 2009, and has announced that it will be further streamlining its portfolio and focusing investment even more clearly on key growth markets. Strategic portfolio development is aligned to the three global megatrends: resource efficiency, health & nutrition, and globalization of technologies. In this way, Evonik aims to sharpen its profile as one of the world’s leading specialty chemicals corporations. The Executive Board has therefore decided to concentrate investment on areas with above-average growth potential. Given this, together with the increasing consolidation of the sector and the rising significance of Asian markets, Evonik sees better perspectives for the carbon blacks business outside the Group. The carbon black activities are no longer defined as part of Evonik Industries’ core business and have already been carved out to a separate legal entity.

Evonik manufactures and markets carbon blacks for the rubber and tire industries and pigment blacks for applications including coatings, plastics, printing inks and toners.

Since the start of this year Evonik has been intensively examining the options for the value-oriented development of this business. It has now engaged an investment bank to prepare the divestment.

3 Comments »

  1. […] Carbon Black Business Filed under: Carbon Black, General — Notch @ 10:10 am Following yesterday’s announcement that Evonik would divest its carbon black business, the company today announced a management change […]

    Pingback by Evonik Names New VP at Carbon Black Business « News from Notch Consulting Group — September 21, 2010 @ 10:10 am

  2. […] Possible Options in Evonik Carbon Black Divestiture Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 4:44 pm In addition to its possible sale to a new Russian/Polish joint venture (detailed below), there are three major possibilities with regard to Evonik’s divestiture of its carbon black business: […]

    Pingback by Possible Options in Evonik Carbon Black Divestiture « News from Notch Consulting Group — October 5, 2010 @ 4:44 pm

  3. […] required), Evonik Industries has “mandated a bank“ to sell its carbon black business, which was announced in September. During an October 28th press briefing at the K2010 plastics show in Düsseldorf, Evonik Degussa […]

    Pingback by Evonik Industries moves forward with sale of carbon black business « News from Notch Consulting Group — November 1, 2010 @ 3:14 pm


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