Italmatch buys two Thermphos units

Italian speciality chemicals firm Italmatch Chemicals has acquired the phosphonates and phosphorus chlorides business units of Dutch firm Thermphos International. The two have combined sales of about €80 million and employ 100 people, bringing Italmatch, which is based in Genoa, to about €250 million per year and more than 450 employees.
The former unit’s products, including the Dequest brand, are made at a site in Newport, U.K., with an R&D centre in Louvain-le-Neuve, Belgium, while the latter, including PCl3, POCl3 and PCl5, is based at Frankfurt-Höchst.
Italmatch already has five manufacturing sites and two specialized logistic centres in Europe, three plants in China and sales, distribution and technical assistance operations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Managing Director Sergio Iorio said that Italmatch aims to be “a leading global player in innovation-driven sectors of speciality chemicals … in which application competence and know-how are the key success factors”. Lube, fuel and MWF additives, plastic additives, performance chemicals, water management and detergents are among these.
This deal, he added, “represents a unique opportunity to consolidate and grow the business in the long term, through the exploitation of significant potential synergies”. The chlorides “will benefit from the integration with Italmatch’s existing phosphorus operations and raw material vertical integration,” while the phosphonates “will be further developed through joint R&D cooperation in organophosphorus chemistry” at the Arese site and through commercial and technical synergies in detergents, oil drilling and paper mill applications.
In December 2012, Italmatch had completed the acquisition of Undesa, which is active in natural esters and speciality products for detergents. This deal, the company said at the time, complemented its existing range of synthetic lubricant additives and phosphonates for the detergents industry, for instance by adding oil- and solvent-soluble phosphonates to its water-soluble line and by bringing in direct sales subsidiaries in Singapore, Japan and the U.S.