KEM ONE
Joint takeover by industrialist and private equity / No indication of planned closures
Shortly before Christmas, the commercial court in Lyon / France overseeing the insolvency proceedings of Kem One (Lyon; www.kemone.com) gave the go-ahead for a takeover of the PVC producer by a consortium of Alain de Krassny, the 72-year-old supervisory board chairman of Austrian chemical producer Donau-Chemie, and US private equity group OpenGate Capital (Los Angeles, California / USA; www.opengatecapital.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 20.12.2013.
Officially, the nod was given to Krassny alone. As a formality, OpenGate withdrew its bid at the last minute as French law did not allow a planned merger of the bids to be authorised in time. In fact, however, the industrialist and the private equity investor will share ownership, with each initially putting up EUR 5m to seal the deal. Krassny will act as president of Kem One, while the PVC maker’s current chief operating officer Frédéric Chalmin has been named director general.
To date, there is no indication the takeover from the Klesch Group (Geneva / Switzerland; www.klesch.com) will lead to any plant closures. According to some reports, there could be as many as 50 redundancies, however. The revamping of the chlorine electrolysis facilities at Lavera up to 2017 apparently is also under discussion. In the meantime, the new owners of Kem One are said to have concluded negotiations – described as “difficult” – with Kem One’s raw materials and energy suppliers, with ethylene suppliers Total and LyondellBasell reportedly agreeing to rebates averaging 13.5%.
Arkema (Colombes / France; www.arkema.com), former owner of the PVC activities, has agreed to forgive unquantified Kem One debts as well as to retrain around 100 employees and find jobs for them in its own organisation. Arkema said it will take an impairment charge of EUR 15-20m for the PVC producer in its Q4 2013 balance sheet.
Officially, the nod was given to Krassny alone. As a formality, OpenGate withdrew its bid at the last minute as French law did not allow a planned merger of the bids to be authorised in time. In fact, however, the industrialist and the private equity investor will share ownership, with each initially putting up EUR 5m to seal the deal. Krassny will act as president of Kem One, while the PVC maker’s current chief operating officer Frédéric Chalmin has been named director general.
To date, there is no indication the takeover from the Klesch Group (Geneva / Switzerland; www.klesch.com) will lead to any plant closures. According to some reports, there could be as many as 50 redundancies, however. The revamping of the chlorine electrolysis facilities at Lavera up to 2017 apparently is also under discussion. In the meantime, the new owners of Kem One are said to have concluded negotiations – described as “difficult” – with Kem One’s raw materials and energy suppliers, with ethylene suppliers Total and LyondellBasell reportedly agreeing to rebates averaging 13.5%.
Arkema (Colombes / France; www.arkema.com), former owner of the PVC activities, has agreed to forgive unquantified Kem One debts as well as to retrain around 100 employees and find jobs for them in its own organisation. Arkema said it will take an impairment charge of EUR 15-20m for the PVC producer in its Q4 2013 balance sheet.
03.01.2014 Plasteurope.com [227126-0]
Published on 03.01.2014
German version of this article...