Lanxess has dropped plans to sell its rubber accelerator and anti-oxidant businesses as announced earlier. Instead the business with the chemicals used to vulcanize rubber is to be integrated into the company's Advanced Industrial Intermediates business.

News agencies reported that Lanxess already had received bids for the activities worth around €220 million in annual sales but had reconsidered the sale due to improving profitability.

Pending the sale, the rubber assets initially were due to be merged with the functional chemicals business unit and subsidiary Rhein Chemie into a new Rhein Chemie Additives (ADD) business unit.

A sale of the nitrile-butadiene rubber business is still "on ice," a Lanxess spokesperson told Reuters.