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Business

DowDuPont names its three planned spin-offs

The familiar Dow and DuPont brands will stay, but the agrochemicals business gets a new name

by Alexander H. Tullo
February 26, 2018

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Credit: DowDuPont
The logo of the DowDuPont spinoff Corteva Agriscience.
Credit: DowDuPont

In what is being billed as progress toward a split-up next year, DowDuPont has named the three firms it intends to become. Two of the companies will retain the Dow and DuPont names. However, the third, an agricultural chemical and seed firm, will get a new identity: Corteva Agriscience.

The Dow name will go to what is now called the materials science company. To be based in Midland, Mich., Dow’s former headquarters, the company would have had about $44 billion in sales and $9 billion in before-tax earnings in 2017.

The new Dow will be made up mostly of former Dow businesses such as petrochemicals, packaging polymers, polyurethanes, and coating resins. It is slated to be the first company spun off early next year.

The company now called specialty products will become DuPont and be based in Wilmington, Del., DuPont’s former headquarters. It had about $21 billion in sales and $5 billion in pretax earnings last year. DowDuPont hopes to separate the firm by June 2019.

The new DuPont will retain many traditional DuPont businesses, such as Kevlar aramid fibers, building materials, industrial biosciences, and engineering polymers. It will also include former Dow businesses like electronic materials, automotive adhesives, ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes, and Styrofoam insulation board.

Corteva will combine the agricultural businesses of Dow and DuPont. Also slated for a June 2019 spin-off, it had sales of $14 billion in 2017 and before-tax earnings of nearly $3 billion. Corteva, DowDuPont says, is taken from words meaning “heart” and “nature” in Latin and Hebrew, respectively.

The name is a new direction for DowDuPont. In February 2016, when Wilmington was selected as the agriculture company’s headquarters, Dow and DuPont said the firm would retain the DuPont name. At the time, they said the materials science firm would be called Dow.

DowDuPont Executive Chairman Andrew N. Liveris says the naming is evidence of a smooth breakup, one that’s set to occur about six months ahead of the original timetable. “The Dow and DuPont teams have made incredible progress in six short months,” Liveris says.

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