Muttenz, Switzerland
July 25, 2019
- Entire Masterbatches and Pigments to be disposed, reclassified to discontinued operations
- Sales from continuing operations grew by 4 % in local currency to CHF 2.229 billion
- Continuing operations EBITDA before exceptional items softened by 2 % in Swiss francs to CHF 355 million with a 15.9 % EBITDA margin
- One-off CHF 231 million provision for an ongoing competition law investigation by the European Commission
- Post-provision continuing operations EBITDA was CHF 102 million, net result for the total Group at minus CHF 101 million
- Operating cash flow rose by 11 % to CHF 113 million
- Outlook 2021: Focused portfolio to achieve above-market growth, higher profitability and stronger cash generation
“The first half year 2019 was admittedly challenging - particularly the second quarter, which was additionally impacted by temporary negative influences and one-off occurrences. Our continuing businesses showed resilience in this difficult environment, which comforts us in our strategic decision to divest Masterbatches and Pigments,” said Hariolf Kottmann, Executive Chairman of Clariant. “Despite the uncertainties of the current economic environment, the growth profile of our continuing portfolio remains unchanged. We will continue to intensify our focus on customer experience and fast reliable customer fulfillment, enabling Clariant to realize above-market growth, higher profitability and stronger cash generation.”
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Clariant to focus on its core high value specialty businesses
- Due to the current market conditions, Clariant and SABIC decided to temporarily suspend the negotiations regarding the intended formation of the Business Area High Performance Materials
- The decision was taken to safeguard the best interests of the respective shareholders of both companies
- Clariant will focus on its existing core Business Areas Care Chemicals, Catalysis and Natural Resources and will continue to concentrate on providing best customer experience and fast, reliable customer fulfillment
- Divestment of Pigments is unaffected and will continue as previously announced
- Clariant decided to also dispose of the entire Masterbatches business to maximize value creation potential
Clariant and SABIC have agreed to temporarily suspend the discussions on the intended business combination High Performance Materials (HPM), consisting of Clariant’s Additives and high value Masterbatches and parts of SABIC’s Specialties business.
Given the current market conditions, both parties have decided that temporarily suspending the negotiations is in the best interests of the respective shareholders of both companies.
As part of the portfolio upgrade announced in September 2018, Clariant will continue with the divestment of the Pigments business and has decided to also divest the entire Masterbatches business including both, standard and high value Masterbatches. These divestments are expected to be concluded unchanged by end 2020.
The proceeds from the divestments will be used to invest in innovations and technological applications within the core Business Areas, to strengthen Clariant’s balance sheet and to return capital to shareholders.
The new Clariant will benefit from a stronger focus on differentiated, customer-specific products and offerings with attractive growth prospects and above average value potential. With this more streamlined portfolio structure Clariant will be better able to intensify the focus on customer experience and fast, reliable customer fulfillment, as well as on the development of innovative and sustainable products and applications. This will generate a competitive advantage for customers and hence enable Clariant to realize above-market growth, higher profitability and stronger cash generation.
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