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A prominent part of C&EN’s business coverage over the years has been stories about corporate mergers and acquisitions, or M&As. They are some of the most exciting stories that we write. We wake up to the news that a chemical company we have long known will be acquired and absorbed into another, usually bigger, firm. Transaction amounts are eye popping, in the tens of billions of dollars for big deals nowadays. And executives try to dazzle investors with explanations of why the two businesses will be stronger in combination than they are as separate entities.
Familiar names like Ciba, GE Plastics, Rohm and Haas, and Union Carbide disappeared from the scene through single large deals. Other companies, such as Hoechst and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), were whittled away through many transactions.
Other times, new companies are created when parts of large chemical makers are spun off or sold to investors. Chemours, Corteva Agriscience, and Trinseo, for example, are now prominent names in the chemical industry thanks to this process.
As part of C&EN’s centennial celebration, we are highlighting the transformative nature of M&A with the following timeline infographics. They chronicle the dealmaking histories of six chemical companies that, through mergers, acquisitions, sales, and spin-offs, did much to reshape the structure of the industry.
Four of them are the traditional companies DuPont, Solvay, BASF, and Dow. All four originated before C&EN was born. All of them have humble beginnings in a single product line: gunpowder for DuPont, soda ash for Solvay, dyes for BASF, and bromine for Dow. All found themselves diversifying in the 20th century, particularly after World War II. And all once had pharmaceutical businesses.
We also selected two relatively new firms: Sabic and Ineos. C&EN covered the birth of both companies. Sabic grew as a development project of the government of Saudi Arabia. Ineos’s beginning was entrepreneurial, and it grew almost entirely by acquiring businesses from more traditional chemical companies.
All six firms have been significantly remodeled over the years, but all are survivors in a consolidating industry. Of course, the timelines take us only to the present. We could wake up one day to find that one of these companies is the latest to be consumed in a merger.
In addition to being one of the foundational companies of the US chemical industry, DuPont’s reach has extended far beyond chemistry. DuPont was an early investor in General Motors and owned a stake in the carmaker well into the 1960s. The companies collaborated in areas such as Freon refrigerant through their Kinetic Chemicals joint venture. DuPont’s $7.4 billion takeover of the oil company Conoco in 1981 was the largest-ever transaction at the time. Recent years have seen DuPont shedding traditional businesses. Fibers went with its sale of Invista to Koch Industries in 2004. It spun off Chemours, a maker of titanium dioxide and refrigerants, in 2015. The merger and subsequent split with Dow Chemical took DuPont out of agricultural chemicals and seeds. Last year, DuPont sold Celanese its engineering polymer unit, which held the last vestige of its business in nylon 6,6.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Buys rival explosives company Laflin & Rand Powder
Counterparty: Laflin & Rand Powder
Deal: Buys artificial leather company Fabrikoid
Counterparty: Fabrikoid
Deal: Spins off gun powder makers Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder
Counterparty: Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder
Deal: Buys paint and chemical company Harrison Brothers
Counterparty: Harrison Brothers
Deal: Forms Freon joint venture Kinetic Chemicals
Counterparty: General Motors
Deal: Buys dye and organic chemical maker Newport Chemical
Counterparty: Newport Chemical
Deal: Sells approximately 23% of auto company General Motors' stock
Counterparty: General Motors
Transaction price: $1.2 billion
Deal: Buys oil and gas firm Conoco
Counterparty: Conoco
Transaction price: $7.4 billion
Deal: Buys polyester resin, intermediates, and film units
Counterparty: ICI
Transaction price: $2.25 billion
Deal: Sells polyethylene terephthalate resin business
Counterparty: Alpek
Deal: Buys photoresist specialist ChemFirst
Counterparty: ChemFirst
Transaction price: $408 million
Deal: Agricultural chemical business Corteva Agriscience splits from DowDuPont
Counterparty: DowDuPont
Deal: Buys electronic materials maker Laird Performance Materials
Counterparty: Laird Performance Materials
Transaction price: $2.3 billion
The Solvay synthetic soda ash process, developed in the 1860s, made Solvay a major chemical company by the turn of the century. It was family owned until its initial public offering in 1967. And the firm was pivotal to the founding of Allied Chemical, which is part of present-day Honeywell, and once owned a large stake in the British firm ICI. Solvay grew with Europe’s recovery after World War II and got into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other polymers. In recent years it has been transforming into a specialty chemical maker. It divested PVC through transactions with Ineos. It purchased the French chemical giant Rhodia in 2011 and the US aerospace material specialist Cytec Industries in 2015. Solvay has retained the soda ash business all these years, though it has plans to split into two companies—one focused on commodities like soda ash and another on specialty chemicals.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Forms Allied Chemical & Dye in US
Counterparty: Solvay Process and Semet-Solvay
Deal: Forms polyvinyl chloride joint venture Solvic
Counterparty: Imperial Chemical Industries
Deal: Sells 50% stake in polyvinyl chloride joint venture Inovyn
Counterparty: Ineos
Transaction price: $400 million
When BASF became independent again in 1952 after 27 years as part of IG Farben, it was centered on a single production site, in Ludwigshafen, Germany. What is today the world’s largest chemical maker wasn’t even the largest chemical producer in Germany at the time. That was Bayer. Acquisitions helped BASF grow, diversify, and internationalize. The Dow Badische Chemical joint venture, formed in 1958, and the Wyandotte Chemicals acquisition in 1969 established a US infrastructure for BASF. For the past 25 years, the company has been honing its portfolio. It sold its pharmaceutical business to Abbott Laboratories in 2001. A series of transactions put its polyolefin and styrenic resin businesses in the hands of LyondellBasell Industries and Ineos, respectively. Major purchases during this period—including Engelhard in 2006 and Ciba in 2009—emphasized value-added chemistry rather than commodities.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Merges with dye suppliers Knosp and Siegle
Counterparty: Knosp and Siegle
Deal: Buys coatings business Glasurit-Werke M. Winkelmann
Counterparty: Glasurit-Werke M. Winkelmann
Deal: Forms polyolefin joint venture Elenac
Counterparty: Shell
Deal: Forms enlarged dye joint venture DyStar
Counterparty: Bayer and Hoechst
Deal: Buys construction material business
Counterparty: Degussa
Transaction price: $2.6 billion
Deal: Forms styrenic resin joint venture Styrolution
Counterparty: Ineos
Deal: Buys surface chemistry business Chemetall
Counterparty: Albemarle
Transaction price: $3.2 billion
Deal: Buys polyamide business
Counterparty: Solvay
Transaction price: $1.5 billion
Dow isn’t a serial dealmaker, but the transactions it has made have been transformative. Buying Union Carbide in 2001 strengthened Dow’s petrochemical and polyethylene operations. Rohm and Haas made it a huge player in specialty chemicals. And the merger with DuPont allowed Dow to divest its agricultural chemical unit to form Corteva Agriscience while gaining DuPont businesses that paired well with its own, such as DuPont’s packaging resin franchise. All the while, Dow cleaned up its portfolio with divestitures, such as the sale of its chlorine chemical business to Olin and its styrenic resin unit to private equity firm to form what is now called Trinseo.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Merges with bromine maker Midland Chemical
Counterparty: Midland Chemical
Deal: Buys chlorine maker Great Western Electro-Chemical
Counterparty: Great Western Electro-Chemical
Transaction price: $10 million
Deal: Forms silicone joint venture Dow Corning
Counterparty: Corning
Deal: Forms agricultural chemical joint venture DowElanco
Counterparty: Eli Lilly and Company
Deal: Sells consumer product business DowBrands
Counterparty: S.C. Johnson & Son
Transaction price: $1.1 billion
Deal: Buys nitroalkane maker Angus Chemical
Counterparty: TransCanada Pipelines
Transaction price: $350 million
Deal: Sells ethanolamine business
Counterparty: Ineos
Deal: Forms two joint ventures: MEGlobal for ethylene glycol and Equipolymers for polyethylene terephthalate
Counterparty: Petrochemical Industries Company
Deal: Buys remaining 50% stake in silicone maker Dow Corning
Counterparty: Corning
Transaction price: $4.8 billion
Sabic has an origin unlike that of any other major chemical company. In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia was a big oil exporter. But the country didn’t have a market for the ethane and methane that came out of the ground along with the oil. Saudi Basic Industries Corporation was established in 1976, in part, to end the practice of “flaring” these gases by upgrading them into exportable chemicals. During its first decade, Sabic formed joint ventures with major foreign firms such as Exxon Chemical, Shell, and Mitsubishi Corporation to build massive petrochemical complexes in Saudi Arabia. In the aughts, the company grew internationally with the acquisition of European petrochemical businesses from DSM and Huntsman. The purchase of GE Plastics was a major leap internationally and added specialty materials to Sabic’s offerings.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Forms National Methanol (Ibn Sina)
Counterparty: Celanese and others
Deal: Forms Saudi Methanol (Ar-Razi)
Counterparty: Mitsubishi Gas Chemical
Deal: Forms Eastern Petrochemical (Sharq)
Counterparty: Mitsubishi Corporation
Deal: Forms Al-Jubail Petrochemical (Kemya)
Counterparty: Exxon Chemical
Deal: Forms Saudi Petrochemical (Sadaf)
Counterparty: Shell
Deal: Forms joint venture to purchase process technology firm Scientific Design from Linde
Counterparty: Süd-Chemie
Deal: Buys 50% stake in process technology firm Scientific Design
Counterparty: Clariant
Transaction price: $130 million
Founded in 1998, the British company is one of the youngest of the world’s major chemical makers. Ineos’s rapid growth is primarily the result of acquisitions of older operations cast off by more established firms. But Ineos doesn’t purchase chemical plants willy-nilly; its transactions over the years fit logical patterns. For example, through a series of deals, the company has reassembled the old BP Chemicals. The biggest of those deals was its $9 billion purchase of BP’s petrochemical and polyolefin business Innovene. It was followed by purchases of BP’s aromatics business and a 50% stake in the petrochemical complex Shanghai Secco Petrochemical in China, originally a BP joint venture with Sinopec. Ineos has also been a consolidator in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and styrenic resins. Major PVC acquisitions include EVC, and Solvay’s PVC business. In styrenics, it has purchased assets from Lanxess and BASF.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Buys ethanolamine business
Counterparty: Dow
Deal: Buys majority of polyvinyl chloride maker EVC
Counterparty: EVC
Transaction price: $70 million
Deal: Buys remaining interest in polyvinyl chloride EVC
Counterparty: EVC
Deal: Forms styrenic resin joint venture Styrolution
Counterparty: BASF
Deal: Buys remaining 50% stake in polyvinyl chloride joint venture Inovyn
Counterparty: Solvay
Transaction price: $400 million
In addition to being one of the foundational companies of the US chemical industry, DuPont’s reach has extended far beyond chemistry. DuPont was an early investor in General Motors and owned a stake in the carmaker well into the 1960s. The companies collaborated in areas such as Freon refrigerant through their Kinetic Chemicals joint venture. DuPont’s $7.4 billion takeover of the oil company Conoco in 1981 was the largest-ever transaction at the time. Recent years have seen DuPont shedding traditional businesses. Fibers went with its sale of Invista to Koch Industries in 2004. It spun off Chemours, a maker of titanium dioxide and refrigerants, in 2015. The merger and subsequent split with Dow Chemical took DuPont out of agricultural chemicals and seeds. Last year, DuPont sold Celanese its engineering polymer unit, which held the last vestige of its business in nylon 6,6.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Buys rival explosives company Laflin & Rand Powder
Counterparty:Laflin & Rand Powder
Deal: Buys rival explosives company Laflin & Rand Powder
Counterparty:Laflin & Rand Powder
Deal: Spins off gun powder makers Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder
Counterparty:Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder
Deal: Forms Freon joint venture Kinetic Chemicals
Counterparty:General Motors
Deal: Buys dye and organic chemical maker Newport Chemical
Counterparty:Newport Chemical
Deal: Sells approximately 23% of auto company General Motors' stock
Counterparty:General Motors
Transaction price:$1.2 billion
Deal: Buys oil and gas firm Conoco
Counterparty:Conoco
Transaction price:$7.4 billion
Deal: Buys polyester resin, intermediates, and film units
Counterparty:ICI
Transaction price:$2.25 billion
Deal: Sells polyethylene terephthalate resin business
Counterparty:Alpek
Deal: Buys photoresist specialist ChemFirst
Counterparty:ChemFirst
Transaction price:$408 million
Deal: Merges with Dow Chemical
Counterparty:Dow Chemical
Transaction price:$150 billion (market capitalization of the combined firm)
Deal: Agricultural chemical business Corteva Agriscience splits from DowDuPont
Counterparty:DowDuPont
Deal: Buys electronic materials maker Laird Performance Materials
Counterparty:Laird Performance Materials
Transaction price:$2.3 billion
The Solvay synthetic soda ash process, developed in the 1860s, made Solvay a major chemical company by the turn of the century. It was family owned until its initial public offering in 1967. And the firm was pivotal to the founding of Allied Chemical, which is part of present-day Honeywell, and once owned a large stake in the British firm ICI. Solvay grew with Europe’s recovery after World War II and got into polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other polymers. In recent years it has been transforming into a specialty chemical maker. It divested PVC through transactions with Ineos. It purchased the French chemical giant Rhodia in 2011 and the US aerospace material specialist Cytec Industries in 2015. Solvay has retained the soda ash business all these years, though it has plans to split into two companies—one focused on commodities like soda ash and another on specialty chemicals.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Forms Allied Chemical & Dye in US
Counterparty:Solvay Process and Semet-Solvay
Deal: Forms polyvinyl chloride joint venture Solvic
Counterparty:Imperial Chemical Industries
Deal: Sells 50% stake in polyvinyl chloride joint venture Inovyn
Counterparty:Ineos
Transaction price:$400 million
When BASF became independent again in 1952 after 27 years as part of IG Farben, it was centered on a single production site, in Ludwigshafen, Germany. What is today the world’s largest chemical maker wasn’t even the largest chemical producer in Germany at the time. That was Bayer. Acquisitions helped BASF grow, diversify, and internationalize. The Dow Badische Chemical joint venture, formed in 1958, and the Wyandotte Chemicals acquisition in 1969 established a US infrastructure for BASF. For the past 25 years, the company has been honing its portfolio. It sold its pharmaceutical business to Abbott Laboratories in 2001. A series of transactions put its polyolefin and styrenic resin businesses in the hands of LyondellBasell Industries and Ineos, respectively. Major purchases during this period—including Engelhard in 2006 and Ciba in 2009—emphasized value-added chemistry rather than commodities.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Merges with dye suppliers Knosp and Siegle
Counterparty:Knosp and Siegle
Deal: Forms joint venture Dow Badische Chemical
Counterparty:Dow
Deal: Buys coatings business Glasurit-Werke M. Winkelmann
Counterparty:Glasurit-Werke M. Winkelmann
Deal: Forms polyolefin joint venture Basell
Counterparty:Shell
Deal: Forms styrenic resin joint venture Styrolution
Counterparty:Ineos
Deal: Buys polyamide business
Counterparty:Solvay
Transaction price:$1.5 billion
Dow isn’t a serial dealmaker, but the transactions it has made have been transformative. Buying Union Carbide in 2001 strengthened Dow’s petrochemical and polyethylene operations. Rohm and Haas made it a huge player in specialty chemicals. And the merger with DuPont allowed Dow to divest its agricultural chemical unit to form Corteva Agriscience while gaining DuPont businesses that paired well with its own, such as DuPont’s packaging resin franchise. All the while, Dow cleaned up its portfolio with divestitures, such as the sale of its chlorine chemical business to Olin and its styrenic resin unit to private equity firm to form what is now called Trinseo.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Merges with bromine maker Midland Chemical
Counterparty:Midland Chemical
Deal: Buys chlorine maker Great Western Electro-Chemical
Counterparty:Great Western Electro-Chemical
Deal: Forms silicone joint venture Dow Corning
Counterparty:Corning
Deal: Forms agricultural chemical joint venture DowElanco
Counterparty:Eli Lilly and Company
Deal: Sells consumer product business DowBrands
Counterparty:S.C. Johnson & Son
Transaction price:$1.1 billion
Deal: Buys nitroalkane maker Angus Chemical
Counterparty:TransCanada Pipelines
Transaction price:$350 million
Deal: Sells ethanolamine business
Counterparty:Ineos
Deal: Forms two joint ventures: MEGlobal for ethylene glycol and Equipolymers for polyethylene terephthalate
Counterparty:Petrochemical Industries Company
Deal: Buys remaining 50% stake in silicone maker Dow Corning
Counterparty:Corning
Transaction price:$4.8 billion
Sabic has an origin unlike that of any other major chemical company. In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia was a big oil exporter. But the country didn’t have a market for the ethane and methane that came out of the ground along with the oil. Saudi Basic Industries Corporation was established in 1976, in part, to end the practice of “flaring” these gases by upgrading them into exportable chemicals. During its first decade, Sabic formed joint ventures with major foreign firms such as Exxon Chemical, Shell, and Mitsubishi Corporation to build massive petrochemical complexes in Saudi Arabia. In the aughts, the company grew internationally with the acquisition of European petrochemical businesses from DSM and Huntsman. The purchase of GE Plastics was a major leap internationally and added specialty materials to Sabic’s offerings.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Forms National Methanol (Ibn Sina)
Counterparty:Celanese and others
Deal: Forms Saudi Methanol (Ar-Razi)
Counterparty:Mitsubishi Gas Chemical
Deal: Forms Eastern Petrochemical (Sharq)
Counterparty:Mitsubishi Corporation
Deal: Forms Al-Jubail Petrochemical (Kemya)
Counterparty:Exxon Chemical
Deal: Forms Saudi Petrochemical (Sadaf)
Counterparty:Shell
Transaction price:$1.2 billion
Deal: Forms joint venture to purchase process technology firm Scientific Design from Linde
Counterparty:Süd-Chemie
Deal: Buys 50% stake in process technology firm Scientific Design
Counterparty:Clariant
Transaction price:$130 million
Founded in 1998, the British company is one of the youngest of the world’s major chemical makers. Ineos’s rapid growth is primarily the result of acquisitions of older operations cast off by more established firms. But Ineos doesn’t purchase chemical plants willy-nilly; its transactions over the years fit logical patterns. For example, through a series of deals, the company has reassembled the old BP Chemicals. The biggest of those deals was its $9 billion purchase of BP’s petrochemical and polyolefin business Innovene. It was followed by purchases of BP’s aromatics business and a 50% stake in the petrochemical complex Shanghai Secco Petrochemical in China, originally a BP joint venture with Sinopec. Ineos has also been a consolidator in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and styrenic resins. Major PVC acquisitions include EVC, and Solvay’s PVC business. In styrenics, it has purchased assets from Lanxess and BASF.
Sources: C&EN reporting, company documents.
Transaction prices are not included when they weren’t available or didn’t apply.
Acquisition | Sale | ||
Joint venture/Other |
Deal: Buys ethanolamine business
Counterparty:Dow
Deal: Buys Phenolchemie
Counterparty:Degussa
Transaction price:$378 million
Deal: Forms styrenic resin joint venture Styrolution
Counterparty:BASF
Deal: Buys remaining 50% stake in polyvinyl chloride joint venture Inovyn
Counterparty:Solvay
Transaction price:$400 million
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