Industry: Future factories
A cavernous factory in Charlotte, North Carolina, is among the newest and shiniest in the empire of Siemens, the German engineering group. There is a palpable buzz as workers put…
South Africa eyes platinum’s allure
A star attraction at one of Anglo American’s mines in South Africa’s platinum-rich Bushveld Complex is a gleaming blue locomotive. The train is a prototype developed by the mining company…
Johnson Matthey declares special dividend
Strong North American demand for its diesel catalysts helped boost pre-tax profits at Johnson Matthey 58 per cent, prompting the speciality chemicals company to declare a special dividend of 100p…
Rexam close to sale of personal care unit
Rexam, the FTSE 100 packaging specialist, is in final-stage negotiations over a sale of its personal care division, in a deal that is estimated to be worth about £350m. People…
Evonik to go ahead with IPO
Chemicals producer Evonik Industries has confirmed plans for a stock market listing in what is set to be Germany’s largest initial public offering in more than a decade. The group,…
Dow Chemical wins $2.2bn in Kuwait damages
Dow Chemical of the US has been awarded $2.16bn in damages from the Petrochemical Industries Co of Kuwait by an arbitration court over the breakdown of a planned joint venture…
Akzo Nobel signs €1.75bn pension deal
Dutch paint and chemicals group Akzo Nobel has closed a €1.75bn longevity insurance contract with Swiss Re covering the company’s pension obligations for employees in the UK. The contract will…
Victrex has room for manoeuvre
Destocking hurt Victrex in the last three months of 2011 but since then demand for the company’s high-strength, heat-resistant plastics has recovered and sales volumes in the three months to…
Veterans sought to fill Swiss boardrooms
Facing cutthroat competition and the burden of an overvalued currency, Switzerland’s big industrial companies are turning away from lawyers and accountants and looking to industry veterans to fill their top…
Export oils wheels for RS Clare
In the past three years, RS Clare, a maker of lubricants since 1746, has doubled its exports and now sells to more than 40 countries. “It’s a damn good thing…
Evonik IPO to underscore its key role
Few people outside Germany or the chemical industry knew much about Evonik Industries – until it went up in flames. A fire last month at an Evonik chemical plant in…
DSM to acquire Canadian nutrition group
Dutch chemical and nutrition group DSM is to acquire Ocean Nutrition Canada, a producer of fatty acids derived from fish oil, in a deal giving the company an enterprise value…
DSM reports positive start to year
Shares in Dutch chemical manufacturer DSM held steady after it announced that earnings dropped slightly compared with the first quarter last year. Weakness in its polymer intermediates sales undercut strong…
Taiwan investors try to unseat chairman
In a rare example of shareholder activism in Taiwan, a group of domestic investors is appealing to international fund managers to help it wrest control of a $2bn petrochemicals company…
Immersed in the drama of science
Midway through a conversation that has verged on the drily technical, Benoît Potier suddenly demonstrates why he once thought seriously about an acting career. Leaping up from his seat to…