Trinseo sells polycarbonate equipment to Indian firm

Trinseo’s polycarbonate plant in Stade, Germany, is being packed up and shipped to India. Deepak Nitrite, an Indian firm that makes phenol and specialty chemicals, paid $52.5 million for the equipment and a license to use Trinseo’s polycarbonate technology. The sale ends a saga for the struggling chemical maker. Trinseo originally announced in 2019 that it was looking for strategic alternatives for the plant but later decided to keep the facility. This past September, Trinseo said it would close the facility and that it would buy, at lower cost, polycarbonate that it needs for blending with acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene resins. Trinseo has been trying to exit commodity chemicals and has closed two styrene plants in Europe. The company is also looking for a buyer for its stake in Americas Styrenics, its polystyrene joint venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical. In a note to clients, Jefferies stock analyst Laurence Alexander wrote that he expects a sale of that stake “in the next few months.” Trinseo lost $87 million on $868 million in sales in the third quarter.