Business Concentrates BUSINESS AGRICULTURE
▸ Nufarm snaps up crop chemical businesses Australian crop protection firm Nufarm will pay $490 million to acquire a portfolio of more than 50 European off-patent herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and other products from Syngenta and Adama, the Israeli arm of ChemChina. ChemChina acquired Switzerland’s Syngenta in May; the sale of the European businesses is part of commitments the two firms made to the European Commission to ensure competition in the market. No physical assets or employees will be transferred to Nufarm.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
POLYMERS
▸ Celanese expands plastics output
European earnings surge Several major European chemical makers reported higher sales and earnings in the third quarter of the year compared with the year-ago period. At BASF, earnings rose 16% to $2.1 billion driven by “significantly higher sales prices in the chemicals segment,” the firm says. Overall sales rose 9% to $15.3 billion. CEO Kurt Bock attributes the results to increased demand. Germany’s Covestro reported its strongest quarter since spinning out of Bayer in 2015 with earnings up 50% to $1 billion on a 17% sales increase to $4.1 billion. The firm credits the boost in part to higher selling prices in its polyurethanes segment. Wacker Chemie said earnings rose 13% to $352 million as sales increased 14% to $1.5 billion. However, AkzoNobel reported strong headwinds as earnings slipped 13% to $452 million. Industrial chemicals maintenance costs hurt results. Revenue at the firm, which fought off a takeover from rival PPG earlier this year, eked out an increase of just 1% to $4.3 billion. Akzo says the spin-off of its chemicals business is still on track for April 2018.—MARC REISCH
transactions topped the $1 billion mark. The largest among these was BASF’s $2.2 billion purchase of Solvay’s nylon business.—ALEX TULLO
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
▸ Chemical dealmaking slows in 2017
▸ UPM mulls German bioethylene glycol plant The Finnish forestry products firm UPM says it will evaluate the potential for a biorefinery in Industriepark Höchst located in Frankfurt-Höchst, Germany. The firm would use the plant to make a total of 150,000 metric tons per year of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol, along with lignin side products, from wood. The feedstock would come from sustainably managed hardwood forests in Central Europe. Currently, biobased ethylene glycol is made from Brazilian sugarcane, while biobased propylene glycol is made from glycerin, a biodiesel by-product.—MELODY BOMGARDNER
MATERIALS Chemical merger and acquisition activity has declined in 2017 as the chemical industry focuses on smaller transactions instead of blockbuster deals, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The consulting group says that in the first three quarters of 2017, the chemical industry racked up $43.2 billion in deals, a decline of 70% versus the same period in 2016. PwC says a total of 78 deals have occurred so far in 2017, a decrease of 16%. A lack of megadeals explains the decline. Only five
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | OCTOBER 30, 2017
▸ Borealis, Borouge launch new resins Borealis and its joint venture with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Borouge, have launched Anteo, based on Borealis’s bimodal terpolymer polyethylene technology, for flexible packaging applications. The resins are made in a two-reactor system that incorporates
Two workers with film made from the Anteo resins. two monomers into the polymer backbone. Borouge is making the resins at its plant in Ruwais, United Arab Emirates.—ALEX TULLO
VACCINES
▸ Lilly and CureVac sign cancer vaccine deal Eli Lilly & Co. has signed a deal potentially worth $1.8 billion with Tübingen, Germany-based CureVac to develop mRNA vaccines for cancer targets chosen by Lilly. In the vaccines, mRNA provides genetic instructions for making antigens, proteins that arouse and train the immune system to target cancer cells. CureVac will design, manufacture, and formulate the vaccines, and Lilly will run clinical development and commercialization. The deal includes a $50 million up-front payment and an equity investment worth about $53 million.—RYAN CROSS
C R E D I T: BO R EA LI S
Celanese is boosting capacity across its engineering polymers business. The company is increasing ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) capacity at its plant in Nanjing, China. It’s also adding engineering plastics compounding capacity in Nanjing; Suzhou, China; Forlì, Italy; Florence, Ky.; and Bishop, Texas. And Celanese is expanding capacity for long-fiber reinforced thermoplastics in Winona, Minn. The firm recently wrapped up improvement projects at plants making polyacetal, UHMWPE, polyphenylene sulfide, and polybutylene terephthalate.—ALEX TULLO
