Gilde snaps up Clariant’s acetyl business for €48m

Clariant has sold its acetyl building block business, based around monochloroacetic acid (MCAA) as its main business, to the Gilde Buy-Out fund for SF74m (€48m/$57m).

The business had sales of SF146m in 2004, and employs around 300 people at Knapsack, and Gersthofen, Germany. All of these employees will transfer to the new company, and Clariant will continue to operate as the firm’s sales agent and distributor outside Germany. Clariant says the business is strong in chlorinated intermediates and terpenes.

Ralph Wyss, managing director of Gilde Investment Management, said he believes there are opportunities for organic growth in the business. This could come in the shape of specialities, where the current management has been working hard, he said.

There are also geographical opportunities in China and the US, where there is a lack of capacity, and ‘there is the possibility of “greenfield plants” in the medium term’, said Wyss. He declined to give a time frame for such future investments.

There are ‘opportunities to cut overhead costs, by looking at more effective ways of sourcing services currently provided by Clariant.’ ‘We have benchmarked the business and we are not at all worried about sales per employee figures,’ said Wyss.