BUS INESS CONCENTRATES
CABOT TO ACQUIRE NORIT
AIR PRODUCTS BUYING CHILEAN GASES FIRM
Cabot Corp. has agreed to acquire Norit, the world’s largest producer of activated carbon, for $1.1 billion. The sellers are European private equity firms Doughty Hanson and Euroland Investments. The sale will supplant Norit’s plan for an initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which it had filed for in March. Based in the Netherlands, Norit had sales last year of $360 million and has grown 12% annually since 2007. Its IPO filing says it expects continued growth because of the use of activated carbon as a mercury removal agent for coal-fired power plants. Cabot CEO Patrick M. Prevost says the acquisition supports his company’s effort to shift its portfolio to higher margin, less cyclical specialty chemicals. Cabot is one of the world’s largest producers of the rubber abrasive carbon black, much of which is sold at low margins to tire producers. Activated carbon is produced by treating carbon sources with heat, steam, and chemicals to create particles of high internal porosity. Carbon black is produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon sources.—MM
Air Products & Chemicals is buying a 67% stake in Indura, Latin America’s largest independent supplier of industrial gases, for $884 million, from Invesa, a holding company owned by Chile’s Briones family. Air Products forecasts that Latin America will experience double-digit annual growth in industrial gases over the coming decade. During the 12 months ending in March, Indura earned $102 million before taxes on $478 million in revenues. Air Products says the purchase will give it $1.5 billion in annual revenues in Latin America, making it the second-largest industrial gases firm in the region. Rival Praxair has about $2.3 billion in revenues in South America alone. Invesa has an option to sell Air Products its remaining stake in Indura in about five years.—AHT
DOW CORNING OPENS SOLAR R&D CENTER
EVONIK CANCELS IPO, AGAIN …
… AND PLANS LYSINE FACILITY IN BRAZIL Evonik Industries will build a facility to produce the animal feed l-lysine in the Brazilian state of Paraná. Raw material and infrastructure for the plant will be supplied by Cargill. Evonik is also expanding a lysine plant at Cargill’s Blair, Neb., site and building a facility in Russia with a partner. All told, the company says it is investing almost $450 million to expand capacity for the fermentation-derived amino acid by 300,000 metric tons per year by 2014.—MMB
GEVO, BUTAMAX MOVE ON ISOBUTYL ALCOHOL
DOW CORNING
For the third time since 2008, owners of specialty chemical maker Evonik Industries have canceled plans for an initial public offering of stock in the firm because of poor market conditions. RAG Foundation, which owns 75% of Evonik, says uncertainty in capital markets and the economic crisis in Europe mean investors are unwilling to pay an appropriate price for the shares. RAG and CVC Capital Partners, which owns the other 25% of Evonik, announced plans for the most recent offering in late May. According to reports from Germany at the time, the two expected to sell a 25% stake in Evonik and raise as much as $5.6 billion. RAG says it will consider a sale again when investors are willing to pay more.—MSR
Dow Corning has started research activities at its Solar Energy Exploration & Development research center in Seneffe, Belgium.
tion next year, as Total winds down largescale production at natural gas fields in the area. In March, Toray Industries said it will build a carbon fiber precursor plant in Lacq on land it is purchasing from Total.—AHT
Scientists at work With 75 researchers, the $13 million facility in new Belgian is intended to supple- R&D center. ment the firm’s existing silicon and solar science infrastructure in Belgium, the U.K., and Germany.—MSR
ARKEMA AND TOTAL INVEST IN FRANCE Arkema, Total, and a Total joint venture are investing $195 million in Lacq Cluster Chimie 2030, a project meant to make France’s Lacq region an attractive place for Arkema and other firms to produce specialty and fine chemicals. Arkema makes thiochemicals in Lacq. The partners say the investment will enable extraction of the natural gas needed for another 30 years of chemical operation. The project is slated for comple-
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Gevo has signed an agreement with the Malaysian government and Malaysian Biotechnology Corp. to build an isobutyl alcohol facility in Kertih, Malaysia, using cellulosic biomass as the feedstock. Gevo hopes to have a plant running by early 2016. It recently started up a plant in Luverne, Minn., that ferments corn sugars into isobutyl alcohol. Meanwhile, Butamax, a joint venture between DuPont and BP that competes with Gevo, has signed up four more ethanol producers that are considering retrofitting their facilities to make isobutyl alcohol using Butamax technology. Separately, a U.S. District Court judge has denied Butamax’ motion for a preliminary injunction against Gevo for infringing on its technology.—AHT
BELGIAN, DANISH FIRMS HIKE ASIAN CATALYSTS Belgium’s Umicore and Japan’s Nippon Shokubai are forming a joint venture that will supply vehicle emissions catalysts to Japanese carmakers. Owned 60% by Umicore and 40% by Shokubai, Umicore Shokubai will be based in Himeji, Japan, where Shokubai operates a plant. Outside
BUS INESS CONCENTRATES
Japan, the venture will rely on Umicore facilities in the Americas and Europe. Aided by Japanesegovernmentsubsidies,theventure will also set up an R&D center in Tokoname, Japan. Separately, Denmark’s Haldor Topsøe has agreed to purchase land for a new catalyst plant in Tianjin, China. Scheduled to open in 2014, the plant may eventually employ as many as 100 people.—JFT
BLUESTAR SILICONES OPENS NEW FACILITY
BLUESTAR SILICONES
Bluestar Silicones has opened a new plant and R&D center in York, S.C. The 226,000-sq-ft former textile chemicals facility, acquired last year, replaces Bluestar
FUJIFILM, LONZA BOOST BIOTECH CAPABILITIES Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies is expanding mammalian cell line and process development services and adding a multi product current Good Manufacturing Practices facility at its Billingham, England, site. Work has begun on a cGMP cell bank and a 1,000-L biologics plant, which will utilize single-use reactorswhencompleted in2013. Meanwhile, Lonza has completed construction of a cGMP clean room at its Houston site. The facility will support viral vector and viral vaccine projects at volumes up to 2,000 L. The Swiss firm entered viral manufacturing less than two years ago and says it needs to expand to support larger projects.—AMT
MERCK SERONO SETS PLAN FOR EUROPE
plants in Ventura, Bluestar’s new facility in York, S.C. Calif., and Rock Hill, S.C. Bluestar is owned by China National Bluestar and is based in Lyon, France. The firm says the new facility will help it double global sales over the next five years.—MM
BUSINESS ROUNDUP LUBRIZOL has signed an agreement to buy Lipotec, a Spanish maker of personal care active ingredients and delivery systems. The deal includes functional health ingredients for food and beverages but excludes the pharmaceutical actives and cosmetic finished products of Lipotec Group. SYNTHOS, a Polish synthetic rubber producer, has made a $600 million offer to buy Polish fertilizer maker Zakłady Azotowe Puławy. Synthos says the trans-
After negotiating with employees, Merck Serono has finalized its plan for consolidating operations in Europe. In Switzerland, it will close its Geneva site by mid-2013 and its Coinsins location in 2014, transferring about 750 employees and eliminating 500 jobs. The company will continue to employ about 1,000 people at three other Swiss sites. Headquarters functions in Geneva will move to Darmstadt, Germany, and manufacturing in Coinsins will move to Aubonne, Switzerland. R&D will be focused in Darmstadt, Boston, and Beijing. Merck
action will improve integration in the Polish chemical sector. MYRIANT has closed a $25 million private bond placement for the construction of its 30 millionlb-per-year biobased succinic acid facility in Lake Providence, La. The plant is set to open in early 2013. The bond is backed by a Department of Agriculture loan guarantee. BRUKER and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention will evaluate Bruker’s matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) Biotyper platform. The yearlong effort will assess use of
the Biotyper as a replacement for or adjunct to traditional biochemical methods of identifying unusual pathogenic bacteria. UNIVERSAL PLASTICS, a maker of thermoformed plastics with about $10 million in annual sales, has been acquired by Sunil Kumar and son Jay. Sunil Kumar is the former CEO of International Specialty Products, which Ashland bought in 2011. LIFE TECHNOLOGIES has opened a design and manufacturing facility in Singapore that will develop and produce sequencing and molecular
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is offering up to $38 million in support for firms started by former employees.—AMT
BMS AND SCRIPPS JOIN FOR DRUG DISCOVERY Bristol-Myers Squibb and Scripps Research Institute have entered a five-year pact to apply novel chemistry to drug discovery and synthesis. Under the agreement, Scripps investigators will prepare synthetic intermediates and analogs for biological evaluation against BMS targets. Separately, Scripps has licensed click chemistry developed by Nobel Laureate K. Barry Sharpless to Sutro Biopharma, a South San Franciscobased firm that will use the technology to synthesize therapeutic proteins.—MM
DRUG CONJUGATES LINK MERCK AND AMBRX Merck & Co. and Ambrx will collaborate on the design and development of antibodydrug conjugates based on Ambrx’ sitespecific conjugation technology. San Diego-based Ambrx is one of several biotech firms with technology to control where small-molecule cytotoxins can be attached to tumor-targeting antibodies (C&EN, June 18, page 12). Ambrx will receive an up-front payment of $15 million and is eligible for milestone payments of up to $288 million.—MM
diagnostic instruments for customers in Asia and elsewhere. It is Life Technologies’ only plant outside the U.S. QUINTILES will spend $14 million to set up its Asian regional headquarters in Shanghai’s Xuhui district. The facility will be large enough for 450 employees. The lab services supplier also signed an agreement that makes Shanghai Clinical Research Center a supplier of testing services to Quintiles’ local customers. ASTRAZENECA has licensed worldwide rights to Rigel Pharmaceuticals’ R256, a small-molecule
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JAK inhibitor being investigated as an asthma treatment. Rigel will receive $9 million in upfront payments and nearterm milestones. The collaboration could be worth up to $100 million to Rigel. ROCHE and Seaside Therapeutics will collaborate on developing disease-modifying treatments for fragile X syndrome and autism disorders. Cambridge, Mass.based Seaside will license its mGluR5 antagonists, including a candidate entering Phase II trials, exclusively to Roche, which will lead development and commercialization.
