PolyOne buys ResinDirect´s N. American business

By Frank Esposito Plastics News

Avon Lake, Ohio-After spending most of 2003 closing plants and deciding which businesses it would sell, PolyOne Corp. has shifted gears in early 2004 by purchasing the North American resin distribution business of ResinDirect LLC.

No purchase price was disclosed in the deal, which was announced 12 Jan.

“The acquisition of ResinDirect substantially enhances PolyOne's commodity resin market position,” Michael Rademacher, PolyOne distribution vice president, said in a news release. “ResinDirect's customers also will benefit because we provide them with an expanded product offering.”

Avon Lake-based PolyOne already was one of North America's largest resin distributors. In the first nine months of 2003, the firm's resin distribution sales were flat vs. 2002 at about $397 million. Pretax profit in that period also was basically flat at $9.6 million. Resin distribution accounted for 21 percent of sales and 8 percent of pretax profits in the first nine months of 2003.

PolyOne officials said that Davidson, North Carolina-based ResinDirect distributes about 60 million pounds of commodity resins annually.

Officials at ResinDirect - a unit of French investment firm and commodities broker Louis Dreyfus Group - had said as recently as June that the company distributed 500 million pounds of commodity plastics annually. That number may have included work done for GE Polymerland, a resin distributor run by GE Plastics of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

It was unclear how the ResinDirect/GE Polymerland arrangement would be affected by the PolyOne deal. ResinDirect had worked with GE Polymerland since 2000. GE Polymerland customers began buying commodity resins directly from ResinDirect sales representatives last year.

PolyOne has lost more than $175 million since the start of 2001. In that time, the firm has closed more than a dozen plants and cut more than 900 jobs.