Tessenderlo Group (Brussels / Belgium; www.tessenderlo.com) intends to sell its remaining compounding activities for TPE and PVC to Mitsubishi Chemical (Tokyo / Japan; www.m-kagaku.co.jp). The business, known under the name CTS (www.cts-compound.com), comprises four production plants in France, Poland and China as well as a research and development unit in Belgium. It has around 360 employees, and posted sales in 2011 of EUR 120m.

No financial details of the transaction have yet been released. The news from Brussels is that the employees have been informed of the company’s intention, and that the relevant consultations will begin soon. The deal also has to be approved by the authorities.

With the planned divestment, Tessenderlo is continuing its exit from the PVC business begun in 2011. Its production activities were sold to Ineos (see Plasteurope.com of 15.06.2011 ), and the company’s last PVC profile processing activities were recently divested to US investor OpenGate (see Plasteurope.com of 03.09.2012). The only PVC-related activities remaining in the Belgian group at present is the pipe business.

Following the consolidation of its PVC activities in Japan, Mitsubishi is evidently looking for global expansion in PVC compounding. In the previous two years, the Japanese company had already taken over all the related activities of long-term JV partner A. Schulman (see Plasteurope.com of 21.08.2012), and this is now being followed by the acquisition of businesses focused more on Europe.