The brief run of DowDuPont (www.dow-dupont.com) in business history is approaching its end, as planned, after only a year and a half. On 1 April 2019, the new Dow (Midland, Michigan / USA: www.dow.com) – minus the tag “Chemical” – started up as a standalone company. As part of the split, investors received one share of new Dow common stock for every three shares of DowDuPont stock they held. The new DuPont and agrochemicals spin-off Corteva will follow on 1 June.

The trimmed-down reincarnation of the old Dow Chemical, which incorporates some of the former DuPont businesses – in particular in coatings and packaging – follows the contours of the DowDuPont Materials Science segment, with pro forma annual sales of USD 49.7 bn (EUR 44.3 bn) and six business units grouped into three divisions.

Packaging accounts for nearly half of the new Dow, followed at some distance by industrial intermediates and coatings. Sales of the new standalone company will be some USD 12.5 bn below Dow’s pre-merger peak. While the pro forma figures, which the company warns do not reflect how the businesses would have performed under real market conditions, show EBITDA USD 900m higher year-on-year, the new Dow will start its new life with its pre-merger debt burden of USD 19.8 bn intact.

The heavyweight among the three segments, Packaging & Specialty Plastics with sales of USD 24.3 bn, includes the integrated units Hydrocarbons and Energy and Packaging & Specialty Plastics. Dow claims to be the world’s largest producer of ethylene, of which its plastics production absorbs a major share. The company is also a leading producer of other polyolefins as well as elastomers and additives. This segment also is responsible for the major Middle East joint ventures, among them Equate and Sadara.

The Performance Materials & Coatings segment, with sales of USD 9.7 bn, consists of two global businesses: Coatings & Performance Monomers and Consumer Solutions. Among other products, the first business, which specialises in coatings additives, manufactures acrylics. The consumer arm specialises in silicones.

Industrial Solutions & Infrastructure, the smallest segment with sales of USD 1.3 bn, is home to Dow’s polyurethanes activities as well as chlor-alkali and vinyls.