Ineos Enterprises has signed an agreement to acquire the North American business of National Titanium Dioxide Company Limited (Cristal) from Tronox Limited for nearly EUR 620 million. Cristal's North American business includes two plants located at the Ashtabula Ohio (US) complex. The deal forms the proposed remedy package submitted to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by Tronox ahead of its proposed acquisition of Cristal's global titanium dioxide business. Under the company's proposed remedy, the Ashtabula complex, along with all of its associated assets including research and development, sales, intellectual property and operations expertise would be held separate during a short interim period while the proposed divestiture is pending. Buyer Ineos Enterprises is a unit of Switzerland-based Ineos, one of the world's largest chemicals companies and the 50th largest business in the world. The mother compa- ny employing around 20,000 people across 171 sites in 24 countries. It is a privately-owned company with sales in 2017 of EUR 53 billion. The acquisition of Cristal by competitor Tronox was announced in the first quarter of 2017 and is still pending since the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has not approved the deal betwwen the two major producers in the titanium dioxide industry. The FTC issued an administrative complaint challenging the merger of two top suppliers of chloride process titanium dioxide. The FTC's administrative complaint charges that Tronox Limited's proposed acquisition of competitor Cristal, for EUR 1.48 billion and a 24 % stake in the combined entity, would violate the antitrust laws by significantly reducing competition in the North American market (comprised of the United States and Canada) for chloride process titanium dioxide.
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