Cargill to acquire Croda’s Bio-industrial Business

Happy New Year to GCB followers! I hope you all had a good holiday break and we wish everyone a healthy and prosperous 2022. I cannot pass up reporting this interesting news last month about Cargill planning to acquire Croda’s bio-based industrial business for $1.03bn (EUR 915m).  The transaction is expected to close in the summer of this year pending regulatory approvals.

Cargill would acquire nearly 1,000 employees around the world and production facilities across Europe and Asia along with a bio-based technology portfolio that caters to the automotive, polymer and food packaging markets.  More than two-thirds of the raw materials used to manufacture these solutions are reportedly bio-based and renewable. The press release mentioned Croda’s Gouda plant in the Netherlands, the Hull plant in the UK and Croda Sipo in China together with additional laboratory facilities supporting key aspects of the divested business activities in Smart Materials, Energy Technologies and Industrial Chemicals.

By the way, Croda Sipo, a JV where Croda owns 65% stake, is a producer of long-chain fatty acids including oleic acid, erucic acid, azelaic acid and pelargonic/nonanoic acid and their esters and derivatives. Sipo also produces alkylpolysaccharides.  Croda also produces fatty acids and glycerine in Europe.  Cargill is expected to acquire 100% of Sipo in the divested business but if the sale cannot be realised, Sipo will be excluded from the sale, reducing the sale consideration by EUR140m.

The acquisition does not include Croda’s bio-based ethylene oxide and associated surfactant production in Atlas Point, Delaware, USA. The Croda press release mentioned that the retained parts of Croda’s Performance Technologies and Industrial Chemicals (PTIC) businesses will provide support to Croda’s Consumer Care and Life Science sectors, and certainly Croda’s surfactant portfolio is integral to Croda’s homecare and personal care portfolio, which are under the Consumer Care business.  The remaining PTIC businesses will become Croda’s Industrial Specialties portfolio.  Croda will supply certain ingredients (e.g. surfactants) from its retained manufacturing plants (e.g. Atlas Point) to Cargill. Similarly, Cargill will enter a supply agreement to provide Croda with certain ingredients from the divested business’ manufacturing plants.

While Croda is transitioning into a focused Life Sciences and Consumer Care company, Cargill is becoming more embedded in the bio-based industrial space. The acquisition reportedly builds on Cargill’s recent expansion in this sector including its QORE bio-1,4 butanediol (BDO) joint venture with HELM, its acquisition of Arkema’s bio-based epoxides business, the acquisition of natural beauty ingredients Floratech, and its long-time investment in the NatureWorks JV with PTT Global Chemical. Cargill’s Bioindustrial business already includes products such as polyols, esters, lubricants, coolants and fluids, binders and adhesives, waxes, polymers, etc.

I will be writing my annual Renewable Chemicals Market Overview this month for my Bio-Materials report at Tecnon OrbiChem and will touch on some of last year’s M&A and industry restructuring.