ICI sells division for £410m
The UK’s largest chemicals firm, which makes Dulux paint, unveiled a business-transforming deal today after agreeing to take on a key division of ICI for £410m (€593m).
Croda International’s planned acquisition of Uniqema, which makes ingredients for consumer products such as suncream, will see it add a business with sales of £626m (€905m) last year – more than double the amount achieved by its own operations in the same period.
ICI put the business up for sale in February after deciding it could use the proceeds to invest in other parts of its operation. Uniqema is Netherlands based but it has 380 staff at a sales and manufacturing site in Teesside, England as well as a further 130 people at Merseyside.
The proposed sale will leave ICI without a factory presence on Teesside – a region where it once employed around 30,000 people.
Croda, which specialises in products for the consumer and healthcare markets, plans to finance the deal through new debt facilities arranged by Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland.
It will employ around 4,100 people if the transaction goes through, including 1,600 from its own workforce – half of which are based abroad. Croda’s head office is at Goole, East Yorkshire, with manufacturing sites at nearby Rawcliffe Bridge and at Hull, Leek in Staffordshire and Widnes.
Croda chief executive Mike Humphrey said: “This is an exciting step change in the Croda growth story. Acquiring Uniqema has clear industrial logic and a compelling financial case.”
