ICI comes round to a Guinness
15 Jan 2000
The current chief executive of Guinness is to join ICI as chief operating officer and could succeed current chief executive Charles Miller Smith next year. The appointment of Brendan O'Neill (pictured), the second senior executive ICIhas recruited from outside the company after Miller Smith, reflects the company's new slant towards consumer products, comments chairman Ronald Hampel.
O'Neill is a Cambridge natural sciences graduate, and (unlike most previous ICIchiefs) has a PhD in chemistry. He has been with Guinness since 1987, and has been credited with the relentless spread of the Irish pub. Under his direction, the company opened little slices of Ireland in such unlikely places as Uzbekistan and Dubai.
Hampel is himself entering his last full year as chairman of ICI. He has confirmed that he will retire next April, following the 1999 annual meeting. Miller Smith is to take over. Most observers believe that O'Neill will be groomed to take over (the Daily Telegraph commented that the candidates within ICIwere 'too preoccupied with their chemistry sets' to concentrate on business issues), but ICIhas not commented on this (see People, page 17).
vICIhas completed the sale of its polyester polymer and intermediates businesses to DuPont for £800 million.
The sale includes a 70 per cent interest in a Taiwanese PTAjoint venture.
However, the sale of Tioxide to DuPont has been delayed by an investigation by the USFederal Trade Commission. The sale would give DuPont 35 per cent of the global titanium dioxide market. DuPont hopes to complete the acquisition by the end of the second quarter.
