MOSCOW (MRC) -- Huntsman Corporation (The Woodlands, Texas) will include textile effects and the balance of its pigments and additives segment in the spinoff of its titanium dioxide (TiO2) business, said Chemweek.
President and CEO Peter Huntsman announced the plan during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on 27 July company plans to spin off its specialty chemical business - rather than sell it - and create a new publicly traded company by early next year.
After debating for many months which route to take, CEO Peter Huntsman said now that the struggling pigments and additives business is becoming profitable again - "back in the black" - his company can gain more value by spinning off the unit and selling shares than by selling it outright. The new company would focus specifically on titanium dioxide chemical, called TiO2, which is used as a pigment for everything from food coloring and paints to coatings and sunscreen.
"A spin allows us to have a process that we can control," Huntsman said, noting that shareholders should benefit. "This is something that has greater certainty behind it."
Huntsman has sought to unload, or at least distance itself, from the titanium dioxide business because its poor performance has weighed on Huntsman's stock price.
As MRC informed earlier, last year Huntsman planned to reduce its titanium dioxide (TiO2) capacity by approximately 100,000 tons, representing 13% of Huntsman's European TiO2 capacity.
Huntsman Corporation is a publicly traded global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals with 2013 revenues of over USD11 billion. Huntsman is a global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals. The company's operating companies manufacture products for a variety of global industries, including chemicals, plastics, automotive, aviation, textiles, footwear, paints and coatings, construction, technology, agriculture, health care, detergent, personal care, furniture, appliances and packaging.
MRC