Avecia sell off continues as Fujifilm buy piece
01/2006-
The break up of global fine and specialty chemicals company Avecia
continued as Fujifilm said it would take over Avecia Inkjet formally
next month. The €220 million fee to acquire the company’s Inkjet and
Electrophotography arm of the business, leaves Avecia Biotechnology as
the surviving piece of the company.
The deal closely follows the
sale of the custom synthesis operation to Nicolas Piramal of India,
which was completed in December and is the latest sell off in a process
that began in 1999.
Under the terms of the acquisition, which is
expected to end in February 2006, Fujifilm are to receive all Avecia
Inkjet and EP development and manufacturing assets in Manchester,
England, Grangemouth, Scotland and New Castle, Delaware, USA.
All 340 employees will transfer with the business, which will operate as a 100 per cent subsidiary of Fujifilm.
“By
integrating its own synthetic chemicals technology, dispersive
technology, and raw materials technology with Avecia’s inkjet
production technology, Fujifilm will enhance its technical position in
the market,” the company said in a statement.
With the completion of
this deal, Synven and Invest Corp, Avecia’s financial owners, will have
washed their hands of their investment in the speciality and fine
chemical operations, which was renamed Avecia and was a former
specialist chemicals unit of AstraZeneca.
The writing was on the
wall as Avecia said in a statement that it intended to undertake a form
of corporate restructuring in 2006 to improve the distributable
reserves position in Avecia Group.
Indeed, last year saw Avecia
announce that KemFine has acquired Avecia Fine Chemicals Limited based
in Grangemouth, Scotland for an undisclosed sum.
In addition, Avecia
completed the sale of its OLED (organic light emitting diodes)
materials and polymer electronics businesses to Merck KGaA of Damstadt,
for €50 million.
The sale included Avecia’s displays business –
Covion Organic Semiconductors GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany and its
polymer electronics research and development activities based in
Manchester, UK. The combined units had sales of approx €8 million in
2004.
In February, Avecia announced it had completed the sale of its
NeoResins business to Royal DSM N.V, having obtained all necessary
approvals.
DSM had paid Avecia €515 million in cash for the entire
NeoResins business on a cash and debt free basis. NeoResins sales in
2004 were around €270 million with an EBITDA of approximately €52
million.