Arkema Sells Functional Polyolefins to SK

Arkema is selling its functional polyolefins business to SK Global Chemical, a subsidiary of major South Korean group SK, for €335 million as it continues to shift its portfolio toward specialty chemicals and advanced materials.  

The functional polyolefins business is part of Arkema’s PMMA Business Unit (Industrial Specialties division) with sales of approximately €250 million and around 100 employees in France. It makes ethylene copolymers and terpolymers for the food packaging, cable, electronics and coatings markets and includes brands such as Evatane, Lotryl, Lotader and Orevac.

SK Global Chemical’s president and CEO Na Kyung-soo said the deal will help the company to expand not only in the European and American packaging markets, but also in Asia, including China. The company added that Arkema’s business was a “highly complementary fit” with its existing activities and would also allow it to enter new industrial markets such as cable manufacturing.

The transaction is expected to complete in the second quarter of 2020. SK Global will create a French subsidiary once the business has transferred from Arkema.

The South Korean company has previously boosted its presence in the US packaging industry when it bought Dow Chemical’s ethylene acrylic acid and polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) businesses in 2017. PVDC is used primarily for household wrap and food/medicine film packaging because of its transparency and high barrier properties.

In separate news, Arkema has announced it will increase capacity for its high-performance polymer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) in Changshu, China, by about 50%. The French group said the project has been spurred by continued strong growth in the lithium-ion battery market for electric vehicles. PVDF is used as an electrode binder in lithium-ion batteries.

The additional capacity is scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter of 2020.