At the end of June, the supervisory board of Germany´s HT Troplast (D-53839 Trosidorf; www.ht-troplast.de) approved to spin-off its EUR 560m PVC profile and sheet activities into a new stand-alone company, set to start trading this autumn. The new firm will retain the multi-brand strategy with products manufactured by subsidiaries Knipping and KBE (D-12277 Berlin; www.kbe-online.de) and Kömmerling (D-66954 Pirmasens; www.koemmerling.de) as well as the HT Troplast brand “Trocal” (www.trocal-profile.de). Headquarters will continue to be at Troisdorf. Management will be in the hands of Helmut Kleffner (chairman), Helmut Marzahn and Detlef Fahlbusch. Research and development for all profile brands will be concentrated at Kömmerling headquarters in Pirmasens.

As part of the reorganisation of coal and chemicals group RAG (www.rag.de), owner of HT Troplast´s parent company, Rütgers (www.ruetgers.de), HT is up for sale. See PIE 06 and 08, 2003. However, a company spokesperson told Plasteurope.com that the restructuring in profiles is unrelated. According to HT, “a large number” of potential buyers have shown interest, with bidding for the profiles manufacturer and sister companies Bakelite (www.bakelite.de) and Isola (www.isola.de) set to begin around the end of the year. A deal is not likely to take place before spring of 2004.