Solvay Specialty Polymers Established as a Global Business Unit
Four historical Solvay Business Units integrate to create global leader in high performance specialty polymers
Bollate - Milan, Italy - 4 April 2011 - Solvay Advanced Polymers, Solvay Padanaplast, Solvay Solexis and SolVin PVDC today announced that they are integrating their activities to act as a single, global business enterprise: Solvay Specialty Polymers.
The Global Business Unit, a specialty unit of Solvay Group, which represents approximately 15% of the Group's total sales (approximately 1.1 billion EUR in 2010), will leverage the strengths from each business to secure its position as the benchmark for discovering, developing and delivering high-performance specialty polymers that meet the challenges facing society, today and in the future. Headquartered in Bollate, Italy, its activities employee over 2500 people across 26 locations throughout North and South America, Asia and Europe.
"Looking to the future, we expect the global high-performance specialty polymers marketplace to continue to present complex challenges and opportunities," said Augusto Di Donfrancesco, General Manager of Solvay Specialty Polymers. "Through this transformation, we are well positioned to capitalize on growth in the high-performance specialty polymers market while providing more value to our customers, business partners, employees and communities."
Solvay Specialty Polymers establishes a strengthened global manufacturing and supply chain capability, and leverages global Research, Development and Technology (RD&T) expertise to continue to innovate and meet customer needs. The unit will further strengthen its RD&T competencies through a reinvestment of 6% of its sales.
As a result, Solvay Specialty Polymers will continue to offer more products with more performance across 33 brands of high-performance specialty polymers for application in virtually every global industry worldwide.
Solvay Specialty Polymers expects its transformation to be complete by the end of 2011.
Solvay Specialty Polymers is a unit of Solvay, an international industrial Group active in Chemistry.
Solvay Specialty Polymers makes more products with more performance than any other polymer company in the world. The company manufactures over 1500 products across 33 brands of high-performance polymers - fluoropolymers, fluoroelastomers, fluorinated fluids, semi-aromatic polyamides, sulfone polymers, aromatic ultrapolymers, high-barrier polymers and cross-linked high-performance compounds - for use in Aerospace, Alternative Energy, Automotive, Healthcare, Membranes, Oil & Gas, Packaging, Plumbing, Semiconductor & Display, Wire & Cable, and other markets. Learn more at www.solvayplastics.com.
Solvay is committed to providing sustainable solutions that contribute to improving quality of life. The Group is headquartered in Brussels and employs about 16,800 people in 40 countries. In 2010, its consolidated sales amounted to EUR 7.1 billion. Solvay is listed on the NYSE Euronext stock exchange in Brussels, Belgium (NYSE Euronext: SOLB.BE - Bloomberg: SOLB.BB - Reuters: SOLBt.BR). Details are available at www.solvay.com.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Americas and Asia
Joseph Grande
+1 (413) 684-2463
solvayap.press@solvay.com
