MUCH MORE FLEXIBILITY TO SUPPLY CUSTOMERS AROUND THE WORLD
18 August 2007 - Bayer MaterialScience AG

In 2005, approximately 180 employees of the Ure-Tech Group generated sales of around USD 55 million. Sales of Bayer MaterialScience’s Business Unit Thermoplastic Polyurethanes amounted to EUR 192 million last year with roughly 450 employees.

Combining its activities with Ure-Tech will substantially strengthen Bayer MaterialScience’s existing TPU market position in Asia Pacific, significantly widening and solidifying its market access, especially in Taiwan, China and the South Asian countries. It will become the market leader in TPU resins supply in the Asia Pacific region.

This acquisition will solidly position Bayer MaterialScience to tap into the significant growth potential for TPU resins in Asia Pacific, especially China. It also provides the impetus for Bayer MaterialScience to accelerate its global growth in the TPU resins market. The total TPU resins and films market was worth about 1.2 billion Euros.

Dr. Hagen Noerenberg, Bayer MaterialScience’s Chairman of the Board, said: “We are combining Bayer MaterialScience’s global expertise, our international network of customers and locations and our innovative strength with Ure-Tech’s market access. The company is the leading Asian supplier of TPU resins and has strong local expertise as well as close customer relationships.”

“As the world’s largest TPU supplier and solution provider of resins and films, we aim to be the number one partner for customers worldwide, providing them superior value-added service and solutions, fast response time and market-focused innovations,” said Dr. Tim Bielfeldt, Global Head of Bayer MaterialScience TPU Business Unit.

Ure-Tech’s CEO, Frank Huang, said: “This is a match made out of understanding of both our strengths and special know-how. We complement each other in the areas of production, marketing, research and development.”

Together with Ure-Tech’s production facilities, Bayer MaterialScience will have in close proximity to its customers a total of six TPU resins and two films production facilities in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Four of these are in Asia Pacific, in Taichung, Taiwan; Shenzhen in Southern China; Cuddalore, India; and Osaka, Japan (a joint venture with Dainippon Ink & Chemicals, Inc.). The other four are in New Martinsville, West Virginia, USA; South Deerfield, Massachusetts, USA; and in Dormagen and Bomlitz in Germany.

“All production facilities will be linked up as a global network and therefore will significantly increase our flexibility to supply customers around the world,” Tim Bielfeldt added.

Customers will also benefit from the company’s backward-integration with raw materials, which ensures the security of supply, as well as the forward integration with films, with Deerfield Urethane and Epurex Films.

Bayer MaterialScience, together with Ure-Tech, will also offer customers worldwide an unbeatable range of products, applications and solutions. From Bayer MaterialScience, Desmopan and Texin are well known brands the world over. In Japan, Pandex (from our Joint venture with Dainippon Ink & Chemicals, Inc.) is a top brand in the industry. Ure-Tech’s Utechllan is also a highly respected brand among customers in Asia. These are brands that customers have come to rely on for consistently high quality products with innovative applications and solutions.

Both Bayer MaterialScience and Ure-Tech are firmly committed to developing the combined family of brands and their applications further to provide customers with even more choices, faster and better solutions, and even more innovative applications.

“Innovation remains a critical driver for us going forward, to help us grow our markets with new products and applications, and to further improve efficiency in our systems, processes, and service quality,” said Tim Bielfeldt.

The acquisition of Ure-Tech’s TPU operations will have no negative impact on employees. In fact, it will offer employees of both companies more opportunities to grow and to contribute to the company’s vision of being the number one partner for TPU customers worldwide.

“We will need every single talent and every innovative idea to fuel further growth, achieve greater efficiency and stay continuously innovative in the market place to sustain our global leadership position in the long run,” said Tim Bielfeldt.

http://www.bayermaterialscience.com

More News:
  • For August 2007
  • From Bayer MaterialScience AG
  • For Engineering Plastics