Lubrizol Sells Noveon Assets

Lubrizol has agreed to sell its food ingredients and industrial specialties business to an affiliate of the private investment firm Sun Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum.

The business, which Lubrizol mostly obtained as part of its 2004 acquisition of Noveon, consists of fine chemicals, specialty polymers and additives, and performance materials groups. It employs about 625 people at six U.S. manufacturing sites and had sales last year of about $400 million.

The proposed deal is the fourth and largest since Lubrizol announced in July 2005 that it wanted to sell businesses with combined annual sales of about $500 million.

Sun Capital has more than 50 companies in its portfolio, three of which it obtained from chemical firms. Last year it acquired Chemtura's Sonneborn refined products division, and in 2004 it acquired Honeywell's performance fibers business and Kerr-McGee's Searles Valley, Calif., inorganic chemicals operation.