Sherwin-Williams reaches agreement to buy Specialized Industrial Coatings Holding

US paint and coatings company Sherwin-Williams has agreed to acquire Germany-based Specialized Industrial Coatings Holding (SIC) for an undisclosed sum, said the company.

SIC, comprised of Oskar Nolte GmbH and Klumpp Coatings GmbH, is focused on foil coatings as well as radiation-cured and water-based coatings for the board, furniture and flooring industry. It has about 220 employees, sales of more than €91.5m/year, and is present in Europe, Asia and South America.

SIC will become part of Sherwin-Williams' Performance Coatings Group following completion of the deal in early 2023, Sherwin-Williams said.

"This acquisition creates opportunities to accelerate our profitable growth in the global industrial wood market and fits our strategy of acquiring complementary, high-quality and differentiated businesses," said John Morikis, Sherwin-Williams’s chairman and CEO.

We remind, Sherwin-Williams Company has announced an agreement to acquire Industria Chimica Adriatica (ICA), an Italian designer, manufacturer and distributor of industrial wood coatings used for kitchen cabinets, furniture and decor, building products, flooring and other specialty applications.
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Lotte Chemical swung to a third-quarter net loss of South Korean Won (W) 31bn due to poorer margins arising from weaker global demand, said the company.

Net loss came to 31.1 billion won (USD22.4 million), swinging from a profit of 312.8 billion won the previous year, the chemical unit of South Korean retail giant Lotte Group said in a regulatory filing.

Operating loss reached 423.9 billion won for the July-September period, compared with a profit of 288.3 billion won a year ago. Sales rose 27.9 percent to 5.68 trillion won.

Q3 sales at the basic chemicals business rose by 31.2% year on year to W3,587bn following the completion of maintenance at the company's Yeosu complex and the start-up of new production facilities.

The basic chemicals unit swung to a loss of W277bn in the third quarter from a gain of W161bn in the same period a year earlier amid squeezed margins and the delayed impact of lower feedstock costs.

The loss was 70.7 percent lower than the average estimate, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency. "The decline in global demand and negative lag effect from falling naphtha prices weighed on profitability," Lotte Chemical said.

A lag effect refers to profits or losses incurred from the time lag between the purchase of crude oil and the sales of petrochemical products. A negative lag effect means narrowing margins as the price of naphtha, a key raw material for a petrochemical company, has fallen from the time of its last purchase.

Basic materials segment, mainly the naphtha cracking business, posted an operating loss of 227 billion won, with sales at 3.6 trillion won.

Its advanced materials, which include construction and interior materials, sector logged 12.1 billion won in operating profit and sales reached 1.2 trillion won. The profitability for the sector weakened due to global economic slowdown and China's COVID-19 restrictions.

Shares in Lotte Chemical closed flat at 171,500 won on the main Seoul bourse, underperforming the broader KOSPI's 1.15 percent gain. The earnings results were released after the closing bell.

As per MRC, Lotte Chemical has recently informed that that company has decided to proceed with the 5 trillion won (USD4.4 billion) petrochemical project in Cilegon, Indonesia after the previous delay due the pandemic. The project named Lotte Chemical Indonesia New Ethylene (LINE) is to commence construction in 2022.

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Evonik’s third-quarter net income fell by 8.9% year on year despite a rise in sales from higher selling prices, said the company.

The company, which also makes ingredients for animal feed and diapers, sees full-year adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) between 2.5 billion to 2.6 billion euros, above the 2021 figure of 2.38 billion euros.

It had previously pointed to the upper end of the range.

Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter fell 5% on the year to 615 million euros (USD615 million), with analysts expecting 608 million euros in a company-provided poll.

Sales jumped 26% to 4.88 billion euros despite lower volumes thanks to price hikes across all divisions which offset higher variable costs.

We remind, business line Coating Additives of Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany) is expanding production capacity of ACEMATT precipitated matting agents at its Taiwan manufacturing facility. The significant capacity increase will help meet growing demand for matting agents in Asia, with the capacity expansion expected to be completed by the second half of 2023.

Evonik is one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals. The company is active in more than 100 countries around the world and generated sales of EUR15 billion and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of EUR2.38 billion in 2021. Evonik goes far beyond chemistry to create innovative, profitable and sustainable solutions for customers.

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Mitsui Chemicals' net income fell by 41.6% year on year to yen (Y) 44.4bn in April-September this year, weighed partly by a fall in bisphenol A prices and poorer polyolefins demand, the Japanese producer said.

The company's overall revenue rose by 27.9% year on year in April-September this year, supported by the increase in sales prices due to higher naphtha and other raw materials and fuel prices, the company said in a statement.

The company's operating income excluding special items fell by 17.7% year on year to Y77.6bn in the same period mainly on the back of a drop in the overseas market prices of bisphenol A (BPA) and an increase in fixed costs.

The drop in BPA prices weighed sales at its core petrochemicals (Basic & Green Materials) business in April-September this year despite the 34% year-on-year increase in sales.

“Naphtha cracker operating rates decreased due to decline in demand of downstream products. Sales of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) were affected by slowing demand,” the company said.

We remind, Mitsui Chemicals has signed an agreement with Singapore-based Shell Eastern Petroleum on the supply of ethylene derived from plastic waste, which will in turn be used to produce polyethylene (PE).

Mitsui Chemicals is a Japanese chemical company that is part of the Mitsui Group. Founded in 1997, its main predecessor is Mitsui Petrochemical Industries founded in 1955.
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NOVA Chemicals Corporation (“NOVA Chemicals”), a leading producer of polyethylene resins, announced the launch of its new, mechanically recycled polyethylene resin: EX-PCR-NC4. Incorporating this product allows converters and brand owners to meet their sustainability goals, without compromising package performance in applications such as shrink, e-commerce, heavy-duty sacks, and protective packaging, said the company.

EX-PCR-NC4 contains 100 percent post-consumer recycled polyethylene (rPE) and offers highly versatile design flexibility making it an ideal solution to lower the carbon footprint of packaging and address climate change. NOVA Chemicals’ rPE is sourced from distribution center flexible film, which includes a blend of back-of-store stretch and front-of-store consumer drop off. Source materials are processed with state-of-the-art technology resulting in a low odor, consistent, and stable product. NOVA Chemicals’ proven technical expertise can help guide customers to incorporate rPE and maintain the necessary level of performance while also creating recyclable flexible packaging that remains in the PE stream through a design for recycling approach.

"Through customer trials and applications development at our Center for Performance Applications in Calgary, we have successfully incorporated our new rPE resin in various end-use format,” said Anna Rajkovic, NOVA Chemicals Circular Economy Market Manager. “We’re excited to commercialize this resin and build a more sustainable polyethylene portfolio for our customers and brand owners."

"Our new rPE product line is the definition of a win-win. It provides converters and brand owners with a more sustainable packaging solution without compromising overall quality or strength. And, by utilizing rPE, we’re diverting plastic waste from landfills while also enabling a fully-recyclable new product: a true demonstration of circularity,” said Alan Schrob, NOVA Chemicals Mechanical Recycling Director. “We aim to deliver commercial quantities of consistent high-quality rPE products to meet the needs of our customers and the desires of the brand owners and consumers. NOVA Chemicals continues to demonstrate leadership in providing sustainable polyethylene solutions, and we look forward to additional growth in this space."

We remind, NOVA Chemicals Corporation launches a new family of high-performance plastomer resins under the brand ASTUTE. These high-performance ASTUTE brand resins - ASTUTE QPsK905 and ASTUTE QHsK908 - leverage NOVA Chemicals' proprietary Advanced SCLAIRTECH technology to produce polyethylene (PE)-based sealant resins.

NOVA Chemicals is guided by a singular purpose to shape a world where the plastic products vital to our health and happiness are better tomorrow than they are today. We have a bold ambition to create a plastics circular economy and work collaboratively toward a low carbon, zero plastic waste future. NOVA Chemicals’ portfolio of virgin and recycled resins, along with best-in-class technical expertise, is what sets us apart; our customers use our products to create easy-to-recycle and recycled content films, packaging, and products. Our employees work to ensure health, safety, security, and environmental stewardship through our commitment to Sustainability and Responsible Care®.

NOVA Chemicals, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, has 2,400 employees worldwide and is wholly owned by Mubadala Investment Company of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
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