Dutch paints and coatings company AkzoNobel has agreed to buy Romania’s Fabryo for an undisclosed sum. Based near Bucharest, the company, is a leading player in the Romanian paints market and the only one offering products for both consumers and professionals.  It generated revenues of around €45 million in 2017.

The deal includes two production facilities and six distribution centers for decorative paints, adhesives and mortars, including one of the largest decorative paint factories in the region, with capacity for further expansion.

“The strong sales and distribution facilities of Fabryo will help us to further improve our business in the region, leveraging our combined resources and expertise and strengthening our position as the leading paints and coatings company in Europe,” said Ruud Joosten, AkzoNobel’s chief operating officer.

The acquisition, the Amsterdam-basedcoatings giant’s first this year, is expected to close in the second half of 2018, subject to regulatory approval.

In separate news, AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals has broken ground for a demonstration plant in Stenungsund, Sweden, to showcase its novel ethylene amines technology. The company announced last year that it had developed a more sustainable and flexible process for producing ethylene amines and their derivatives from ethylene oxide (EO).

“The demonstration plant is an important step in further maturing the technology, aiming to prove that the technology meets performance expectations on an industrially relevant scale. It will also produce significant quantities of final product for customer validation,” said Hendrik van Dam, project manager of AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals’ ethylene amines business.

The range of ethylene amines targeted by the new process includes diethylenetriamine (DETA) and triethylenetetramine (TETA), key building blocks in a number of growth applications such as epoxy curing, lube oil additives and oilfield chemicals. Joppe Smit, general manager of the ethylene amines business, said that the ability to selectively produce compounds like TETA has always been one of the industry’s major opportunities.

The company added that it has already started to explore options for a worldscale manufacturing facility.