Arkema to pay $570 million for surfactant maker

Abstract

France’s Arkema has reached a deal to acquire the Florida-based specialty surfactant maker ArrMaz from Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm, for $570 million. Arkema says the purchase will help it reach a goal of deriving 80% of sales from specialty chemicals by 2023. ArrMaz, which has annual sales of $290 million, employs 400 people. It formulates fatty acid-, ester-, and sulfonate-based processing aids and additives such as defoamers, and dust-control coatings for the mining, fertilizer, and asphalt industries. The firm operates a total of nine chemical plants in the US, Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and China. Around for more than 50 years, ArrMaz started out by providing processing aids to the Florida phosphate fertilizer industry. It has had a series of private equity owners throughout the years. Wind Point Partners acquired ArrMaz in 2003 and combined it with Custom Chemicals, creating a supplier of process chemicals for fertilizer