UCB To Buy Solutia’s Specialty Chemicals Business

Brussels, BELGIUM, Dec. 3, 2002–Belgian drug and chemicals company UCB said on Tuesday it would buy Solutia’s specialty chemicals business for $500 million, creating a new company structure to complement its main drugs business.

Analysts welcomed moves to simplify its structure, which UCB said would generate cost savings and give it global reach in specialty products such as film and adhesives, but some questioned the company’s focus and the deal’s cost.

UCB is currently made up of three divisions — drugs (powered by hayfever drug Zyrtec), its loss-making film division and its chemicals division, but with the acquisition it will now group together the chemicals and film businesses and have a separate drugs business.

The company estimated revenues at the new “surface specialties” business, which makes chemicals for glue and resins for graphic arts, would total more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.48 billion) worldwide.