Dow Touts Its New Specialties Unit

At an event in Philadelphia last week, Jerome A. Peribere, CEO of Dow Advanced Materials, unveiled ambitious growth targets for the business in the coming years. The business, a Dow Chemical unit comprised mostly of the former Rohm and Haas, will grow at a 10% annual rate, he projected, hitting $12 billion in sales by 2012 and $16 billion by 2015. Meanwhile, he expects its earnings before taxes to reach $3 billion by 2012 and $4 billion by 2015. “The engine for all of this growth is our innovation pipeline,” Peribere told attendees. Initiatives announced at the event include an electronic materials technical center in Seoul, South Korea, that will employ 200 scientists and engineers; a $17 million coatings emulsion plant in Zhang­jiagang, China; and a plant in Fombio, Italy, that will make uniform-particle-size copolymers used in ion-exchange resins.