MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clariant says that Harolf Kottmann, the company’s chairman since 2018, has informed Clariant’s board that he will no longer be a candidate for the office of chairman and board member, at the company's annual shareholders’ meeting in April, reported Chemweek.
Following Kottmann’s announcement, at an extraordinary board meeting, the Clariant board unanimously proposed to shareholders that Gunter von Au should be elected chairman, the company says.
Sabic, which owns 31.5% of Clariant’s shares, has agreed with the Clariant board's agenda items and withdrawn its request of a time limit of 12 years for members of Clariant’s board including the chairperson, which it had submitted in December 2020 as an item to be discussed at the upcoming shareholders' meeting, the company says. Sabic has instead asked for the time limit to be anchored in the bylaws of Clariant’s board, Clariant says.
Sabic has also withdrawn a proposal for the distribution of a special dividend to Clariant shareholders of up to 2.00 Swiss francs per share (USD2.24/share), the company says. The Clariant board has proposed an ordinary dividend of SFr0.70/share, which includes SFr0.55/share for 2019 and SFr0.15/share for 2020, it says.
According to an earlier Reuters report, adopting Sabic's proposed time limit “would force Clariant chairman Hariolf Kottmann out, though other board members have several years before they would be affected.” Kottmann said during an analysts’ presentation on 8 January that he could not comment on the matter and that Sabic’s request would be discussed at Clariant’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
Kottmann had been serving as Clariant’s executive chairman ad interim since the sudden departure of Ernesto Occhiello in July 2019, only 10 months after replacing Kottmann as Clariant’s CEO. On 1 January 2021, Conrad Keijzer assumed responsibility as Clariant’s CEO and Kottmann returned to his position as chairman of the board.
As MRC reported earlier, in October 2020, Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland) announced the construction of a new state-of-the-art catalyst production site in China. This project represents a significant investment which further strengthens Clariant’s position in China and enhances its ability to support its customers in the country’s thriving petrochemicals industry.
The new facility will be primarily responsible for producing the Catofin catalyst for propane dehydrogenation, which is used in the production of olefins such as propylene. Thanks to its excellent reliability and productivity, Catofin delivers superior annual production output compared to alternative technologies, resulting in increased overall profitability for propylene producers, says the company. Construction at the Dushan Port Economic Development Zone in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province was scheduled to commence in Q3 2020, and Clariant expects to be at full production capacity by 2022.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, exluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020).
Clariant AG is a Swiss chemical company and a world leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the textile, printing, mining and metallurgical industries. It is engaged in processing crude oil products in pigments, plastics and paints.
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