Axiall is either acting on very poor advice or has something up its sleeve. The company’s total and aggressive rejection of the bid from Westlake has opened a wide door for Westlake to walk through with a hostile bid,
As Monsanto takes visitors through its investor day this week, it does so in a very different environment than it has experienced previously. A story dominated for the last 15 years by innovation, high margins and industry leading growth, is
For the last 12 months – since the significant slide in crude oil – several US commodity chemical companies have effectively traded as a proxy to crude. For months, if crude has gone up then so has LYB, and to
It really is “All Change” in the chemical sector this year. While in this case Andrew Liveris is not retiring yet, we see this as a first move in a transition which allows Andrew to retire soon. He has been
Syngenta’s CEO replacement is now the second major leadership move in the Ag space if we include the DuPont CEO exit. In our Chemical Monthly, published last week we talked about the likelihood of more M&A and restructuring in
This is likely a day of real schizophrenia for Chemours. On the one hand you have a rumored bid (Bloomberg) from Apollo. On the other hand you have the loss of the first Teflon related law suit – we
With the exit of Chair and CEO, Ellen Kuhlman, and the interim replacement of Ed Breen, there will be lots of questions about; why so sudden, why Ed, why not Jim Gallogly and what comes next. One could take the
APD’s long expected announcement to spin off its Materials and Electronics came after the close last night. The company expects to complete the spin by the end of its 2016 fiscal year (September), which seems like a long lead time,
DuPont management may still have the faith that the science based strategy is right, but everyone else seems to disagree. Trian criticized the company for bloated costs and lack of returns on its R&D spend and we have echoed that
Placing the wrong bet on propane prices may have been the best thing that could have happened to Eastman! Eastman is a roll up story and the thesis is that as the company adds complimentary and sometimes overlapping product/technology platforms
