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Wallets Survive Profits Pressure MOST CHEMECAL EXECUTIVES made more money last year, despite weak earnings and mixed stock performance. Nearly all of the executives at 70 companies surveyed by CW [...]

GLOBAL CHEMICAL share prices shrank 4%, including a 5% drop in Europe and the Americas and a 1% decline in Asia, from the beginning of the year through the end [...]

Burning Bucks on Chemicals CHEMICAL INDUSTRY M&A continued its frenzied pace last year, driven by private equity capital groups swarming to the industry because of tumbling transaction multiples, and European [...]

DOW CHEMICAL ISSUED $500 MILLION OF 10-YEAR BONDS EARLIER THIS month after switching underwriters. Dow had hired Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown to lead the offering. Dow later [...]

A PROPOSED HIGH-YIELD OFFERING FOR PMD GROUP--THE FORMER BFGoodrich specialty chemicals businesses purchased last year by a group of private equity capital firms--is expected to mark the reopening of the [...]

MOST NORTH AMERICAN FERTILIZER producers and late-reporting U.S. specialty chemicals companies reported improved fourth-quarter earnings, despite the drag of higher feedstock and energy costs and slower economic growth. Agrium's earnings [...]

BASIC CHEMICAL MAKERS LYONDELL Chemical and Union Carbide sank into the red in the fourth quarter, while profits plummeted at Arch Chemicals, Rohm and Haas, and W.R. Grace. A few [...]

AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS AND Praxair were among the few specialties and industrial gases firms to report increased earnings for the latest quarter. Avery Dennison and Cytec Industries had flat [...]

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY BANKERS AND ANALYSTS ARE SHIFTING FROM one institution to another as they merge, set up, or strengthen their chemical practices. CW has tracked nearly 100 such changes during [...]

EARLY-REPORTING CHEMICAL COMPANIES are posting weak year-end results. H.B. Fuller, Omnova Solutions, and RPM have reported lower results, while 3M says its earnings will be up just 1% from last [...]

Schulman has reported a loss of $727,000, on sales down 6%, to $257 million, reporting 3 cts/share compared to the 12 cts/share the company had been expected to earn in [...]

AIRGAS SAYS EARNINGS FOR ITS FISCAL third quarter, ended December 31, will be 10 cts-12 cts/share. Analysts had expected the company to earn 15 as/share, First Call (Boston) estimates say. [...]

CHEMICALS STOCKS BEGAN A SHARP rebound at the end of last month, despite at least a dozen fourth-quarter warnings and fears of a softening U.S. economy (CW, Jan. 3, p. [...]

THE VOLUME OF M&A HAS SWELLED TO A RECORD OF at least 623 transactions announced in 2000. Bankers expect M&A to maintain its frenzied pace in 2001, as companies continue [...]

CHEMICAL COMPANIES AND INDUSTRY ECONOMISTS forecast a weak first-half 2001, as the U.S. economy slows and oil and energy costs remain high, but they say the second--half will be better. [...]

Airgas says it has completed a $75-million accounts receivable securitization to pay off the company's revolving credit line, using future revenue streams as collateral for the debt. 'Airgas's diverse receivables [...]

ROHM AND HAAS HAS JOINED THE PACK of chemicals companies warning on their fourth-quarter profits. The company says it reported earnings of 12 cts/share in both October and November, but [...]

SLOWING END-USE MARKETS, ESPECIALLY the automotive, construction, and appliance industries, have led to a rash of earnings warnings in the chemical industry (table). Companies say most end-use markets are lowering [...]

W.R. GRACE'S CREDIT RATING SLIPPED TO junk last week amid worries about asbestos liabilities, which has prompted Armstrong World Industries and Owens-Corning to file for bankruptcy recently (CW Dec. 13, [...]

PRAXAIR SAYS IT PLANS TO LAY OFF 750 employees, 3% of its total, and close an unspecified number of plants as part of a restructuring program to focus on five [...]

INDUSTRIAL CHEMICAL COMPANIES' HAD bumpy profits in the third quarter, mainly as a result of escalating raw materials and energy costs, says S&P Compustat (Englewood, CO). Companies say they had [...]

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS HAS LOWERED ITS 2000 earnings estimate 6 cts-10 cts/share, back-pedaling from its mid-October promise to deliver $1.96-$2.00/share. Analysts lowered their estimates in response to the profit warning, although the [...]

CHEMICAL COMPANIES SAY THAT unusually high oil and natural gas prices are killing their bottom lines. The companies told institutional investors, bankers, analysts, and consultants at the CW-Salomon Smith Barney [...]

GLOBAL CHEMICALS share prices were generally flat in October after steep declines earlier in the year. Global chemicals stocks fell 19% from January, rumbling 30% in the Americas, 14% in [...]

BORDEN CHEMICALS AND PLASTICS (BCP), DEXTER, IMC GLOBAL, AND RPM have been downgraded by Moody's Investors Service (New York). Moody's lowered BCP's senior debt rating to B2 from B1 because [...]

ABN AMRO, BEAR STEARNS, AND DEUTSCHE BANK HAVE HIRED additional chemicals analysts and investment bankers to expand their chemicals practices. ABN Amro has hired specialty chemicals analyst David Begleiter, who [...]

FMC ANNOUNCED PLANS LAST WEEK TO SPIN OFF ITS $2-billion/year machinery businesses, a move that would leave the company focused on its $2.2-billion/year chemicals operation. 'Because we've operated as a [...]

BASIC CHEMICALS MAKERS, DIVERSIFIED chemicals companies, and fertilizer producers felt the pinch in the third quarter of higher raw materials and energy costs, the weaker euro, and softer demand for [...]

PPG Industries and Valspar each have announced plans to repurchase up to 6% and 4.7%, respectively, of their outstanding shares. PPG's board has approved a purchase plan for up to [...]

OIL COMPANIES' CHEMICAL PROFITS slumped in the third quarter, along with those of other basic chemicals producers. Earnings dipped at ExxonMobil, Phillips Petroleum, and Ashland, despite a rise in overall [...]

MANY SPECIALTY CHEMICAL MAKERS grew third-quarter profits despite worries about higher feedstock costs, the weak euro, and higher interest rates. Profits reached double digits percent increases at Robin and Haas, [...]

DuPont met earnings estimates for the third quarter, matching expectations that had been lowered after it announced in September that it would not achieve full-year earnings forecasts (CW, Sept. 13, [...]

American Depositary Shares (ADS) of China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) inched up 10 cts/share on October 18, its first day of trading, less than 1% from the initial offer [...]

UNION CARBIDE'S WARNING THAT IT would not meet profit estimates for the third quarter, mostly because of rising feedstock costs, cast a shadow over basic and diversified chemicals makers. A [...]

CHEMICALS EARNINGS during the third quarter rose at several specialty chemicals firms, including Honeywell International, Hexcel, Albemarle, ATMI, Amcol, and Quaker Chemical, despite the pinch of higher raw materials and [...]

MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE (NEW YORK) HAS RECENTLY LOWERED credit ratings for Rhodia and Hercules. Rhodia's debt rating dropped from Baa1 to Baa2 after its $550-million, all-debt financed acquisition of fine [...]

CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON (CSFB), WHICH RECENTLY ANNOUNCED a merger with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrerte (DLJ) has hired Hugo Heath as managing director and head/European chemicals and Adrian Grundy as [...]

SPECIALTY CHEMICAL MAKERS RPM AND Cytec Industries are among the first to report their earnings this quarter, which is predicted to be weak for most specialty chemical companies. RPM'S earnings [...]

ANALYSTS SAY CHEMICAL INDUSTRY'S stock prices have hit bottom. Investors responded by buying chemical stocks in droves last week, lifting share prices for many companies off their 52-week lows. Chemical [...]

The chemical industry has been caught in the sweep as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) more aggressively enforces U.S. securities laws. The most recent victim is Veba, which recently [...]

GEORGIA GULF AND BORDEN CHEMICALS and Plastics have warned that their third-quarter earnings will not meet forecasts because of weak vinyl resins markets and high energy and raw materials costs. [...]

A GROWING BATCH OF CHEMICAL companies have lowered their third-quarter or full-year 2000 earnings estimates, as they battle with rising feedstock and energy costs, a weak euro, and reduced demand [...]

INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS EARNINGS GREW 9% during the second quarter, on sales up 21%, as basic chemicals makers were able to increase prices to compensate for higher oil and natural gas [...]

GNI Group (Deer Park, TX) and its six subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Houston). The company has [...]

STOCK PRICES OF CHEMICAL FIRMS, including Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, have fallen in the wake of DuPont's earnings warning, as investors retreat further from the already out-of-favor chemicals sector, [...]

M&A Values Begin to Slide THE TOTAL VALUE OF CHEMICALS M&A began to shrink in the first half of this year, compared to the record-breaking totals of the last two [...]

Sinopec reportedly plans to delist its publicly traded subsidiaries, including Beijing Yanhua Petrochemical, Shanghai Petrochemical, Yizheng Chemical Fiber, and Zhenhai Refining & Chemical, prior to its initial public offering (IPO), [...]

DOW CHEMICAL SAYS IT DOES NOT EXPECT to complete its merger with Union Carbide by September 30. 'We remain very confident that we will complete the merger in the near [...]

LSB Industries (Oklahoma City) has confirmed its plans to acquire two ammonium nitrate (AN) fertilizer plants from Orica. LaRoche recently sold its entire AN business to Orica for $44 million [...]