ICI offloads acrylics to venture investors
15 Jan 2000
ICI has sold its acrylics business to Ineos Acrylics, a company formed by two investment houses for £505million. The deal completes the company's exit from materials and is `a further milestone in ICI's three-year transformation into a speciality products and paints company, according to chief executive Brendan O'Neill.
Ineos Acrylics, a partnership between Ineos Capital Finance and Charterhouse Development Capital, will now have a 25 per cent stake in the world acrylics market. Its new business, headquartered in Everberg, Belgium, has an annual turnover around £525million and profits of some £31million. It employs 2000 people in Europe, Asia and the US, manufacturing methyl methacrylate, polymethyl methacrylate, and acrylic sheet and resins. Ineos sees the acquisition as a first step in building up an intermediates and specialities business.
The proceeds of the sale will go towards reducing ICI's massive debt, which it incurred when it bought Unilever's speciality chemicals businesses. `We have now completed over 50 divestments since May 1997, and the gross proceeds from the divestment programme now exceed £6billion,' says O'Neill.
