JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #102 - January/February 2016 - 16

overview
Solvay treats
itself to Cytec

composite industry. Two-thirds
of Cytec's business is compositeOn 29 July, the Belgian group
related: Aerospace Materials for
Solvay announced that it had
50%, and Industrial Materials for
reached an agreement with
16% (Figure 2).
Cytec to buy 100% of its capital Cytec is one of the major players
for US$5.5 billion, via debenture in composite materials (and in
loans, hybrid loans and capital
mining chemistry, with some
increase. The Boards of both
business in additives). Its main
companies approved the opera- composites market consists of
tion unanimously. Solvay will
primary and secondary aircraft
continue to focus its strategy on structures. Cytec is also building
sustainable development and
up a number of composite techcreating value. It is counting on
nologies in automotive, and this
generating at least 100 million
is one of its major development
euros' worth of synergies per year goals for the future. It will likely
over the three years following the benefit from Solvay's excellent
acquisition.
position vis-à-vis OEMs and
tier-one manufacturers. In the
Following a vote at an extraoraerospace market, as mentioned
dinary general meeting on a
above, it is Solvay that will ben1.5-billion-euro increase of
efit from Cytec.
capital to enable financing the
operation (with no change to
Following the acquisition, Solvay
the voting rights of the famdecided to create two new global
ily holding company, Solvac
business units (GBU):
S.A., since Solvac shareholders
decided to invest liquid assets
- one, managed by Bill Wood, is
in the operation up to 30% of
dedicated to composite materitheir share in Solvay, which they
-als; it will integrate Cytec's
therefore continue to hold),
Aerospace Materials and
the transaction became official
Industrial Materials businesses
on 9 December 2015 with the
and form part of the Advanced
approval of the European and
Materials segment;
American authorities.
- the other, headed by Mike
Radossich, will combine Cytec's
Cytec is about one-sixth the
In Process Separation, Polymer
size of Solvay, both in terms of
Additives and Formulated
sales ($2 billion compared to
Resins businesses with Solvay's
$12.4 billion) and of number
phosphorus-based intermediof employees (4,600 compared
-ates and will form part of the
to 26,000) (Figure 1). Both the
Advanced Formulations segBelgian group and the American -ment.
company have an international
While 2015 has been a crownfootprint. The acquisition will
ing touch, Solvay had already
boost Solvay's sales in the United been making inroads into
States.
the global composite industry before the acquisition. In
Thanks to the acquisition,
early 2014, it invested in Aonix,
Solvay succeeds Cytec as the
a Canadian company specialsecond-largest global aerospace
izing in thermoplastic-prepreg
composite company, strongly
organosheet manufacturing and
reinforcing its position in the
forming. Aonix also has facilities

Fig. 1: Solvay/Cytec size comparison

in Taiwan. For now, it serves the
sports & leisure and mobile electronics sectors, although it also
has the aerospace and automotive sectors in its sights. Solvay
also has partnerships with the
Swiss core materials company
3A Composites and the Japanese

structural sandwich company,
Japan Styrene Paper Corporation
(JSP).
In January 2015, Solvay
purchased Chevron Phillips Chemical's Ryton® PPS
activities for US$220 million.

Fig. 2: Solvay/Cytec 2014 sales distribution by BU, application sectors and region

16 jec composites magazine / No102 January - February 2016
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #102 - January/February 2016
