In early July 2012, Arkema (Colombes / France; www.arkema.com) took another step on its path to focus solely on its specialty product portfolio, when the group announced that it had completed the divestment of its Vinyl Products activities to Swiss family-owned Klesch group (Geneva; www.klesch.com). First announced in November last year (see Plasteurope.com of 24.11.2011), the deal includes Arkema’s chlorine and soda production lines, its PVC polimerisation facilities as well as the plants processing PVC to compounds and profiles.

The vinyls business, which employs 2,600 workers who generate revenues of about EUR 1 bn and oversee a total PVC capacity of 920,000 t/y, will become part of a new holding called KEM One (Lyon / France).