November 14, 2006
Clariant
Clariant focusing on profitable growth with stringent cost
management; Long-term topquartile performance targeted
・ Objective:
Above-average 10% Return on Invested Capital by end of 2009, up
25%
・ Profitable
growth at or above GDP, led by service-driven
businesses
・ Focus
on
fast-growing markets, particularly China and India
・ Wide-ranging
cost-cutting initiatives launched; emphasis on reducing
complexity
・ Global
site network to be optimized by closing 10% of the
sites
・ Existing job positions to
be reduced by 10%
by 2009
・ Performance
management initiatives to increase leadership skills and
entrepreneurial behavior
Clariant announced today it will increase its focus on value
creation by reducing the company’s cost structure, cutting net
working capital and strengthening its performance culture. At a
total estimated cost of CHF 500 million, the initiatives will
include a 10% reduction in the site network, cutting about
2,200 jobs and shrinking its number of products by at least 25%. The improvements will enable the
company to generate profitable long-term growth and to achieve
sustained cost leadership in the specialty chemicals industry.
“Our
clear goal is reaching a top-quartile position among our peers in
value creation,” said Chief Executive Officer Jan
Secher. “The first step is delivering an
above peer average Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) by the end
of 2009, which will be achieved by significant improvements in
performance management, taking out further costs and allowing for
a differentiated approach to product-driven and service-driven
businesses.”
The targeted growth
in ROIC means a 25% increase from current levels.
These initiatives are the result of a wide-ranging review over
the past six months of Clariant’s strategy, organizational
effectiveness, portfolio components and operating Clariant
International Ltd Group Communications practices. The review
included a close look at the macro-economic outlook as well as
the company from three distinct perspectives: Clariant as seen by
its customers; Clariant versus its competitors, and Clariant as
seen by its employees.
“We
found that the company is headed in the right direction in most
areas,” Mr. Secher said. “What is required now is developing
the company to achieve world-class performance. That means
creating a strong culture of disciplined execution, reducing
complexity where it is not required, and adopting stricter
cost-cutting measures. A sharp focus on cash flow will allow us
to implement the measures, boosting our performance substantially
and creating sustained value for investors,”
he added.
Closer to customers
To reflect the wide diversity of Clariant’s customer segments, the company
will reshape its sales and distribution practices to be more
customer-focused and more tailored to specific markets. “Our product-driven businesses,
which represent 40% of our portfolio, need to be managed with an
intense focus on efficiency, maintaining an extremely
cost-competitive structure, while our service-driven businesses
need to combine cost leadership with application technology and
solutions know-how,” Mr. Secher said. As previously
announced, Clariant will next year begin implementing PRIMA, a
custom-designed pricing management system, which will further
help the company extract value from its diverse products and
services.
Clariant will build on its strengths in colors, surfaces
and performance chemicals. Over the next four years, the
company will invest primarily in developing businesses that
create the greatest additional value for customers by providing
application and solution services. This more stringent allocation
of resources will be a key component of the company’s overall bottom-line growth rate
over the same period.
The Group’s four divisions - Textile, Leather
& Paper Chemicals; Pigments & Additives; Masterbatches,
and Functional Chemicals - are to be supported by
increasingly centralized and efficient group functions, including
sourcing, supply chain management and site services. Clariant
began centralizing these areas last year and considerable
potential is seen to reduce costs further by more effective
purchasing and by pooling expertise.
Growth in Asia
Initiatives will be launched across the group to boost growth in
fast-growing markets in Asia, particularly in China and in
India, where
Clariant already has substantial operations.
The primary focus will be on creating additional capacity to meet
expanding domestic demand, with exports to other regions of
secondary importance. Asia expansion will be especially important
in application-driven business in the Functional Chemicals
Division.
Overall, sales growth for Clariant in Asia is anticipated to be
double the overall growth in GDP in the region.
Furthermore, to reinforce long-term innovation, Clariant will
build on its successful recent investments and its strategy of
creating alliances with start-up companies and universities.
The company intends to invest a total of CHF 100 million over the
four-year period in early-stage “incubator” projects, representing a 10% increase in
its research and development spending. Already successful
examples include the investments made earlier in 2006 in the
U.S.-based firms Starfire and KiON, enhancing the portfolio of new
technologies such as in nano materials and functional coatings.
Site closures and
portfolio pruning
To become a world-class player in the industry, Clariant is
committed to creating the leanest possible global site network.
This will necessitate closing numerous sites over the next four
years, with the main focus in Europe. It will cut costs further
across the group and reduce jobs by 10% by the end of 2009. Clariant
currently employs approximately 22,000 people, down from
approximately 28,000 three years ago.
The
number of products Clariant sells will be reduced by at least 25%. The company has already been
successful in reducing products in its textile dyes business,
where the portfolio has been cut from approximately 3,000
products to about 500 products over the past year. This has
significantly improved operational efficiency.
“The
approach is one of strategic simplicity and increasing
versatility,” Mr. Secher explained. “That means being highly
intelligent about how we both reduce and manage complexity. This
is being done so that it lowers our production, sales and
delivery costs in a long-term, sustainable way. Our portfolio
includes both sophisticated and relatively straightforward
products, such as high performance red pigments for automobiles
and standard red pigments for printing inks. Optimizing our
processes to cut costs is a difficult but necessary challenge.”
Over the next four
years, the company will spend approximately CHF 500 million on
these operational improvements and cost-saving initiatives,
including site network reductions.
About 85% of these initiatives require cash spending and will be
financed by the operating cash flow before exceptionals of
approximately CHF 600 to 800 million per year.
Strengthening leadership
To strengthen the organizational culture, the company recently
launched the Clariant Academy, which will provide professional
development with a focus on performance management skills and
building knowledge-sharing platforms across the group.
In addition, the company is placing strong emphasis on developing
and broadening its leadership base by intensifying its internal
talent management efforts and recruiting outside talent when
appropriate. Recent appointments include a new head of operations
in Germany and a new head of Corporate Development.
“Along
with strengthening the organizational culture and developing
talent, we are compensating our people in way that is closely
linked to the company’s results as well as to their
individual achievements,” Mr. Secher said.
Excellent long-term
prospects
Clariant is committed to building significant value for its
long-term investors, maintaining solid credit ratings and
retaining its dividend policy.
“The
result of this intense period ? focusing on the strengths in our
portfolio, cutting costs, more effectively managing complexity
and improving our execution abilities - will be a stronger
company, a world-class performer, firmly in the top quartile of
the specialty chemicals industry,” Mr. Secher said.
Clariant is a global leader in the field of specialty chemicals.
Strong business relationships, commitment to outstanding service
and wide-ranging application know-how make Clariant a preferred
partner for its customers.
Clariant, which is represented on five continents with over 100
group companies, employs around 21,500 people. Headquartered in
Muttenz near Basel, Switzerland, it generated sales of around CHF
8.2 billion in 2005.
Clariant’s businesses are organized in five
divisions: Textile, Leather & Paper Chemicals, Pigments &
Additives, Functional Chemicals, Life Science Chemicals and
Masterbatches.
Clariant is committed to sustainable growth springing from its
own innovative strength. Clariant’s innovative products play a key
role in its customers’ manufacturing and treatment
processes or else add value to their end products. The company’s success is based on the know-how
of its people and their ability to identify new customer needs at
an early stage and to work together with customers to develop
innovative, efficient solutions.
www.clariant.com
Platts 2006/11/29
Clariant inaugurates 20 kt/year polymer site in Germany
Switzerland's Clariant has inaugurated a new 20,000 mt/year
low-molecular polyolefins production facility for its
Licocene brand of polymers, near its pigments and additives
division at Frankfurt-Hochst, Germany. メタロセン触媒を用いたオレフィンワックス･ポリマー
According to the
group, the new metallocene technology makes it possible to
'selectively tune' key properties of the polyolefin wax, such as
hardness, melting point, transparency and viscosity, so that it
is possible achieve a wide variety of combinations.
This brand of high-performance polymers is used, amongst other
things, as dispersion agents in the production of master batches,
in adhesives and sealing compounds and also in natural and glass
fiber-reinforced composites.
2007/5/8 Clariant
Clariant sells Custom Manufacturing Business to International
Chemical Investors Group
Clariant today announced the sale of its Custom Manufacturing
Business to International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG) for an
undisclosed transaction value. The sale is the latest step in
Clariant’s strategy to focus on its core
competencies in colors, surfaces and performance chemicals.
Clariant’s Customer Manufacturing Business
supplies a wide range of intermediates and actives ingredients
for the agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and polymers industries.
At closing, the new autonomous entity will be one of the world’s leading suppliers to the
agrochemicals industry with production sites in Germany and the
US. In 2006, the Custom
Manufacturing Business had sales of around CHF 217 million and
about 490 employees.
The sales process was initiated only six months ago as a result
of the review of the strategic options for the former
underperforming Life Science Chemicals Division.
Clariant expects to record a book loss of approximately CHF 70
million. The transaction is expected to close by mid-year after
fulfilment of local transfer requirements such as approval of all
relevant authorities. All assets and personnel will be
transferred to the buyer.
Jan Secher, Clariant’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “As an independent entity supported
by a committed investor, the Custom Manufacturing Business has an
excellent opportunity to improve its performance in the future.
It is a major step in focusing our business portfolio on colours,
surfaces and performance chemicals.”
"The Clariant
agrochemicals businesses are an important building block
complementing our present portfolio of fine chemical custom
manufacturing assets. With this acquisition WeylChem will become
an important player in the non-GMP custom manufacturing sector
with revenues of approximately 200 million Euro. It is our plan
to realize the synergies with our other fine chemicals
manufacturing activities and to expand our services to our
customers of major chemical companies around the world”
says Dr. Achim
Riemann, Managing Director of ICIG.
"The Custom Manufacturing Business substantially broadens
ICIG’s fine chemicals activities and we
are looking forward to actively supporting both the German and
the U.S. businesses in their organic growth as well as through
further additional complementary acquisitions" says Patrick
Schnitzer, Managing Director of ICIG.
About International Chemical Investors
International Chemical Investors is an investment group focusing
on mid-sized chemical businesses, preferably subsidiaries of
large corporations, which are considered non-core, with leading
positions in niche markets, operating in competitive
environments. Including the newly acquired Clariant businesses,
ICIG will operate 14 production facilities located in Germany,
the United States, France, Belgium, Ireland and Poland with total
sales of close to Euro 500 million and more than 2,500 employees.
Clariant Masterbatches Expands in Latin America Through Acquisitions and Investments
Clariant Masterbatches
has received regulatory approval to purchase
MasterAndino S.A., an
important manufacturer in Colombia. The transaction, which was
finalized at the end of October, will strengthen Clariant’s ability to offer superior value
to its customers throughout Colombia. Clariant will acquire the
product inventory, equipment and business portfolio of
MasterAndino and will continue manufacturing at the existing
MasterAndino plant until early in 2008, when both operations will
be merged in a newly constructed Clariant Masterbatches facility
in Cota, on the outskirts of Bogota.
“This
is one of several major projects we are undertaking in Latin
America,” said Dominik von Bertrab, Head of
Clariant Masterbatches. “Along with investments in
Guatemala and Chile, the expansion in Colombia demonstrates our
commitment to be the leading supplier of color and additive
masterbatches not only in the Andean market, but also across all
of Latin America. Clariant has structured its Latin American
operations so that we can be a preferred partner for customers in
the region, increasing our level of service and leveraging our
presence by combining global reach with local supply. Overall,
Clariant Masterbatches’ business in Latin America
significantly outpaced the market in 2006 and is on track to do
the same again this year.”
MasterAndino was
founded in 1995 by Rafael Botero Salazar, and it has grown to
become one of the largest color masterbatches suppliers in
Colombia. The company produces color and additive masterbatches
for polyolefins, polystyrene, ABS and PET. “Rafael Botero is an icon in the
masterbatch business of Colombia,” notes Sven Schultheis, Clariant
Masterbatches Head of Regional Business Unit Latin America. “He is knowledgeable and
trustworthy and, like Clariant, has always believed in
maintaining a strong customer focus. Our companies have
complementary product lines and now, with the economies of scale
in a highly productive new site, we see excellent potential to
provide value to our customers.”
Earlier this year,
Clariant purchased PlastiColor S.A., a producer of color
masterbatches in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The facility
manufactures custom colors and provides rapid response time and
accelerated delivery required by the local market in Central
America.
In Chile, a new green-field plant opened in December 2006 in
Maipu, near Santiago. Chile is a very attractive place for
business, especially for companies in the high-end packaging,
consumer goods and fiber markets. The new Masterbatches plant is
focused mainly on producing color and special-effect
masterbatches for polyolefins used in these applications.
Meanwhile in Brazil, Clariant Masterbatches has expanded capacity
at its site in Suzano, just east of the city of Sao Paulo. Three
new masterbatch lines are being installed along with an automated
material handling system. Advanced mixing technology is being
employed to achieve even dispersion of higher concentrations of
color and additives within the carrier resin matrix. In
ColorWorks? Sao Paulo, one of seven centers on the ColorWorks
global design services network, production-scale blowmolding and
injection-molding equipment has been installed to create a fully
equipped packaging lab with the ability to quickly produce
prototype bottles and caps. A three-dimensional color imaging
system is also available to create virtual models of new products
using different materials, colors, effects, shapes, and textures.
This technology provides a quick and easy way to help customers
evaluate color, gloss and texture in plastic components without
making costly prototypes.
Clariant Masterbatches products are marketed under six global
brand names: REMAFINR masterbatches for olefins; RENOLR
masterbatches for engineering resins, styrenics and PVC; CESAR
additive masterbatches; HYDROCEROLR chemical foaming and
nucleating agents; OMNICOLORR universal color masterbatches; and
ENIGMA special effects. These brand names and Colorworks? are all
registered trademarks or trademarks of Clariant.
Sep 21, 2008 Reuters
Clariant to be broken up after new CEO named-paper
Swiss speciality chemicals company Clariant could be broken up
after it named a new chief executive earlier this month, a
newspaper reported on Sunday.
Citing unnamed sources, the Sonntag newspaper said the struggling
company planned to sell its pigments and additives
division to a competitor and its textile,
leather and paper chemicals unit to a private equity company.
That would leave the company with just its
functional chemicals and masterbatches divisions, which make up just half its
turnover, the newspaper said. Clariant was not immediately
available to comment on the article.
Earlier this month, Clariant said Hariolf Kottmann would take
over as new CEO in October from Jan Secher, who only joined the
company in 2006 and who Sonntag noted as recently as July had
said he wanted to make acquisitions
Sonntag said Kottmann was behind the break-up plan as well as
board president Juerg Witmer, although it said the company might
end up having to put up the whole business for sale.
Shares in Clariant surged after Germany's BASF launched a 2.1
billion euro bid earlier this month for its Swiss rival Ciba,
whose president Armin Meyer said the consolidation in the sector
has only just begun.