Kemira is buying Cytec water unit

Finnish chemicals maker Kemira is acquiring Cytec Industries' water treatment chemicals and acrylamide businesses for about $240 million. Kemira says the new business, which had sales last year of about $335 million, will almost double the size of its water treatment chemicals operation. Cytec, for its part, says the deal allows it to exit a business that no longer fits its strategic direction. The sale includes five plants in the U.S., the Netherlands, and England. Four of the plants are expected to transfer to Kemira by the end of September, and a plant in Botlek, the Netherlands, will transfer early next year. Kemira has agreed to offer jobs to the approximately 480 people involved in the business. Kemira says it is currently the leading global supplier of inorganic coagulants for water treatment. The Cytec business, in contrast, supplies coagulant and flocculent polymers that are based on organic monomers such as acrylamide and diallyldimethylammonium chloride. "The water treatment chemical business is a business of the future," says Mats Jungar, president of Kemira's Kemwater unit.