Lanxess to split EPDM activities off from TRP

ERJ staff report (DS)

New York/Leverkusen - Lanxess is to add a 14th business unit when it splits the EPDM business off from its Technical Rubber Products (TRP) unit from 1 February 2013. The EPDM unit will be headed by current head of TRP, Guenther Weymans. The remaining speciality elastomers activities will come under the leadership of former DSM executive, Jan Paul de Vries.

The Technical Rubber Products (TRP) business unit will be split in two. Keltan Elastomers (KEL) will become a standalone business unit covering solely EPDM. It will have about 600 employees at sites in the Netherlands, China, the United States, Germany and Brazil.

TRP's remaining portfolio includes polychloroprene rubber, hydrogenated nitrile rubber, ethylene vinyl acetate rubbers and nitrile rubber. These products will now be part of another standalone business unit called High Performance Elastomers (HPE), headed by Jan Paul de Vries, with about 800 employees at sites in Germany, the United States, France and China. Some 100 employees will move from TRP to Group Function Innovation & Technology.

The current head of TRP's EPDM business line, Ming Cheng Chien, will become Chief Executive Officer of Lanxess Greater China. As part of his responsibilities, he will oversee the project to build a 160 kt/year EPDM plant in in Changzhou (Jiangsu Province), China.

The current head of Greater China, Martin Kraemer, will lead the newly formed business line Benzyl Products and Inorganic Acids within the business unit Advanced Industrial Intermediates (AII). These changes will take effect February 1, 2013.

Lanxess has a new target for its EBITDA pre exceptionals of EUR 1.8 billion in 2018. The company previously aimed for EUR 1.4 billion in 2015 and now expects to achieve that figure in 2014, a year ahead of schedule.

In the last two years, the company has announced about EUR 1.4 billion in capex, the majority of which has been allocated to Lanxess ' Performance Polymers segment. This includes debottlenecking, retrofitting and greenfield sites.

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Press release from Lanxess