Trinseo announced in December 2020 that it would acquire Arkema's PMMA business for 1.137 billion euros, and just officially completed all acquisition procedures on May 3rd. This acquisition is a catalyst for Trinseo's transformation. This reformative transaction, which lasted for six months, will accelerate the growth of Trinseo's global engineering materials business and will bring about US$50 million in annual synergies.
PMMA is a transparent and rigid resin with a wide range of applications. Arkema’s PMMA business is a comprehensive business, including the production of methyl methacrylate (MMA) to polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). And sold under the well-known brand Plexiglas® in the American continent and under the Altuglas® brand in other parts of the world. In addition, this acquisition is also a new step in Arkema's transformation, achieving the ambitious goal of becoming a pure specialty material manufacturer by 2024.
As a global material solution supplier and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders and synthetic rubber, Trinseo has sales of US$3 billion in 2020 and has 17 production bases around the world with approximately 2,600 employees. Arkema's PMMA business will complement Trinseo's high-performance plastic product portfolio (ABS, PC, etc.), and strengthen its position in the automotive, construction and lighting markets, medical and consumer electronics. Therefore, these highly complementary business combinations will provide new growth and development opportunities.
In this acquisition, Trinseo added seven PMMA and MMA product manufacturing plants and three R&D centers in Europe and North America. In terms of employees, Trinseo added approximately 860 business department employees, including France, Denmark, Italy, the United States and Mexico, as well as other sales and marketing team members from all over the world.