US financial investor Advent International (Boston, Massachusetts; www.adventinternational.com) has sold resin manufacturer Allnex (Frankfurt / Germany; www.allnex.com) to Thai petrochemical group PTT Global Chemical (Bangkok; www.pttgcgroup.com). The purchase price amounts to around EUR 4 bn. The deal is expected to be signed and sealed by the end of this year.

Advent had acquired the resin specialist, which originally had emerged from the Hoechst Group, from former composites specialist Cytec (today: Solvay) in 2013 and – not least through the acquisition of its competitor Nuplex in 2016 – expanded it to become a global leader in its segment. Allnex currently has sales of around EUR 2 bn in coating products, mainly based on unsaturated polyester resins, and employs a staff of more than 4,000. Most recently, Allnex had significantly increased its prices in several steps (see Plasteurope.com of 26.03.2021).

For PTT Global Chemical, a subsidiary of the country’s largest energy group, Allnex represents an expansion of its product portfolio. To date, the company has generated more than three quarters of its sales with refinery products and olefins. Nevertheless, PTTCG has had a difficult few years: sales and EBITDA have fallen significantly, from the equivalent of EUR 13.2 bn in 2018 to just EUR 8.41 bn in 2020. In the same period, EBITDA slumped by more than half, to around EUR 520m.

For Advent, the investment in Allnex is likely to have paid off: according to media reports, the Americans had bought the resin producer eight years ago for EUR 1 bn. The transaction, however, does not mean that Advent is leaving the industrial segment: for two years, former Evonik subsidiary Röhm (Darmstadt / Germany; www.roehm.com) has been part of the financial investor’s portfolio (see Plasteurope.com of 06.08.2019).