Firms leave water treatment

Degussa and Rhodia are selling water treatment businesses. Degussa Chairman Utz-Hellmuth Felcht told shareholders at the company's recent annual meeting that as a supplier of products without a treatment services component to its business, "we do not have the wherewithal to achieve a leading position by ourselves. For this reason, we are restructuring these activities with the goal of divesting them over the mid-term." Separately, Rhodia has agreed to sell its potable and wastewater treatment business to Sweden's Feralco. The deal will more than double the size of Feralco, which last year had sales of nearly $30 million.