PPG to Retain Portfolio after Review
PPG Industries has decided to maintain its existing business portfolio following a strategic review in response to activist investor Trian Partners’ call for the US paintmaker to split into two.
Investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley undertook two separate and independent assessments of the company but both found that splitting the business was unlikely to improve shareholder value and would in fact reduce the company’s strategic flexibility and push up operating costs.
“By maintaining our current portfolio, we avoid negative commercial, operational and procurement impacts and preserve full strategic flexibility for the future,” said PPG chairman and CEO Michael McGarry. “As we have done consistently, we will continue our ongoing strategic assessment of all of our businesses, ensuring each business continually earns its place in our portfolio based on current performance and future expectations.”
A separate study of PPG’s architectural coatings business in the US and Canada has also prompted the company to initiate several improvements in order to recover earnings lost from the departure in 2018 of a major customer, with the goal of returning to profitability next quarter.
In addition, the Pittsburgh-based group said it has identified “certain opportunities” to further improve operating efficiency. “As a result, we are working to finalize a new cost savings program with targeted full year run rate savings of about $125 million,” McGarry said.
The final program is expected to include further optimization of manufacturing, a targeted pruning of low-profit business in certain regions, exiting certain smaller product lines and redundancies related to recent acquisitions.
PPG has closed on two acquisitions so far this year – German automotive coatings manufacturer Hemmelrath in April and US coatings company Whitford Worldwide in March. These followed the acquisition last December of SEM Products, a US manufacturer of repair and refinish products used mostly for automotive and other transportation applications.
Trian has not commented on the results of the review.
