Evonik acquires Air Products' specialty & coating additives business for $ 3.8 bn

German specialty chemicals company Evonik Industries AG will acquire the specialty & coating additives business (performance materials division) of the US-based Air Products and Chemicals Inc for $ 3.8 billion (approximately Euro 3.5 billion), strengthening its leading position in the high-margin specialty & coating additives market. The transaction is intended to be completed by the end of the year. It is expected that the acquisition will be EPS accretive for Evonik in the 2017 business year.  
  
Klaus Engel, CEO of Evonik Industries AG, said, “Evonik is already one of the leading producers of specialty & coating additives. Air Products’ specialty & coating additives business perfectly complements this fast-growing segment. With this acquisition we are expanding our portfolio with precisely the right markets, products and innovations and continuing to invest in our growth and profitability.”  
    
With its own strategic reorganisation and creation of three independent operational segments in 2015, Evonik established the right conditions for integrating major acquisitions. As such, Air Products’ specialty & coating additives business can be rapidly integrated into the growth segments Nutrition & Care and Resource Efficiency. The combined specialty & coating additives business has a turnover of around Euro 3.5 billion and an attractive EBITDA margin of more than 20 percent. At the same time, Evonik is further strengthening its leading position in rapidly growing, highly profitable markets with strong differentiation from competitors and low dependence on commodity prices.   
  
With their products and their strong positions in the key global markets, Evonik and the newly acquired business are highly complementary. Their specialty & coating additives add critical and highly valuable characteristics to their customers’ products. The two businesses serve three particularly attractive, rapidly growing core markets: coating and adhesive additives, high-value PU foam additives, and specialty surfactants for industrial and institutional cleaning.
 
They target the same end customers, but with different and complementary products. For instance, Evonik is a leader in PU foam stabilisers while the specialty & coating additives business of Air Products is well positioned in PU foam catalysts. Demand for these products is rising strongly, and the market for these additives will grow far more quickly than overall demand for chemical products.   
  
Geographically, Evonik and the acquired division also complement each other. While the focus of the Air Products’ business is on North America and Asia, Evonik is particularly strong in Europe. With the current acquisition, Evonik is crucially boosting its standing in the North American market, allowing it to serve the increasingly global activities of its customers even more effectively. At the same time, by growing in North America and Asia, Evonik is reducing its dependence on the European market and therefore better protecting its own business against economic fluctuations in individual regions.