The final regulatory approval is still outstanding, but the game of musical chairs for the proposed merger of giants Dow (Midland, Michigan / USA; www.dow.com) and DuPont (Wilmington, Delaware / USA; www.dupont.com) is already well underway (for most recent coverage, see Plasteurope.com of 18.05.2016). After announcing late last year that Dow CEO Andrew Liveris would oversee operations at the Material Science business, while DuPont chief executive Edward Breen would be in charge of the Agriculture and Specialty Products units (see Plasteurope.com of 14.12.2015), the companies have now assigned other senior leadership positions. All appointments are to take effect once the final approval is given, likely sometime in H2 this year.

Jim Fitterling, who currently serves as COO of Dow, will become COO of the new Material Science business, which is to be spun off as an independent, pure-play company following the merge. To be named Dow, the business will consist of Dow Performance Plastics, Performance Materials & Chemicals, Infrastructure Solutions and Consumer Solutions as well as DuPont’s Performance Materials segment. Provided that the restructuring of Dow Corning proceeds as planned, the business will also include Dow Corning Silicones.

Marc Doyle, who currently heads DuPont’s Electronics & Communications, Industrial Biosciences, Nutrition & Health, Performance Materials as well as Safety & Protection businesses, will become the COO of DowDuPont’s Specialty Products unit, which will also be spun off into a separate company post-merger. It will be comprised of DuPont’s Nutrition & Health, Industrial Biosciences, Safety & Protection and Electronics & Communications businesses as well as Dow’s Electronic Materials unit.

The new COO of the DowDuPont Agricultural business will be James Collins, who currently heads DuPont’s Agriculture unit. The proposed spin-off of this particular business will be comprised of DuPont’s Agricultural business as well as Dow’s Seed and Crop Protection divisions.

The financial operations of the new DowDuPont will be in the hands of Howard Ungerleider, who currently works as CFO of Dow.