Hello and welcome to your late week international coatings industry update, brought to you by SpecialChem. The industry is taking a little breather from financials, and news is starting to thin out. There are, however, a few things that merit your attention.
Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc., today reported its results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2009. Revenues of $1.08 billion in the third quarter of 2009 compared to $1.61 billion during the prior year period as the sales decline reflected lower volumes, negative foreign currency translation and the contractual pass through of lower raw material prices, which more than offset pricing actions.
"While our third quarter 2009 company volumes trailed prior year levels by 14 percent, we benefited from a 15 percent sequential improvement in volumes from second quarter 2009 levels," said Craig O. Morrison, Chairman, President and CEO. "The sequential improvement in our third quarter 2009 Segment EBITDA of 42% is a result of our productivity actions, volume gains and strong performances in certain specialty products."
Lombard Medical Technologies PLC said it has entered into a conditional agreement pursuant to which the company's wholly owned subsidiary, PolyBioMed Limited will sell its polymer coatings business for a total of £1.0 million in cash. PolyBioMed will sell the goodwill, contractual rights and intellectual property of its polymer coatings business to Bayer MaterialScience AG with the remaining assets to be sold to Bayer Plc.
Completion of the Agreement is expected to occur within the next few weeks. On completion, the employees of PolyBioMed will be transferred to Bayer Plc and PolyBioMed will receive cash consideration of £1.0 million.
Since Superbirds and HemiCudas are no longer bringing a king's ransom at auction, esteemed auction house of Barrett-Jackson has found a way to supplement their bottom line with the help of Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes.
SWFAC has introduced a new line called Planet Color Barrett-Jackson Collector Color Series with such colors as 'Blisterin' Blue,' 'LeMans Blue Pearl,' 'Big Bad Orange,' 'Crazy Cuda' and 'Hemi Violet.' Made from a series of optically enhanced coatings containing state-of-the-art modern crystals and pigmentation technology, these colors have the same look and feel of the colors from back in the day - but are cleaner in appearance, with greater brilliance and depth of finish.
Here's an update on the Chevrolet Volt color contest, which promises to be a much better name than a color. After sifting through about 27,000 submissions, Chevrolet has announced the finalists in the contest to name a silver-green paint color for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The three finalists are "EV-ergreen," "Viridian Joule," and environMINT."
Some of the rejects in the contest were fairly clever. Chevrolet says those included "Chargetruse," "Recharge Silver" and "Voltaic Platinum."
Consumers will pick the winner via online voting through 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 1. Chevrolet will announce the winner that same day on the eve of the 2009 L.A. Auto Show press days. You can only vote once.
On a less pleasant subject, a massive fire broke out at a paint factory in Bang Saotong district of Thailand Tuesday morning, causing severe traffic snarl in the area. Reports say that the fire brought down one of some ten buildings inside the factory compound.
Dozens of fire engines were rushed to the factory of the Bangplee Pattana L P G Ltd.
The good news is that there were no reports of casualties and the fire fighter have evacuated workers and residents near the factory.
The fight fighters could control the blaze after it consumed a building. The fire fighters were dousing the building with chemical to prevent the blaze from spreading to other buildings which serve as paint warehouses.
Now here's a novel new, but perfectly logical use for white paint. The Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change Congress, Isaac Mekler, announced that the Peruvian proposal of painting melting Peruvian glaciers white as a way to prevent and reduce global warming around the world has been included among the 26 winners of the "100 ideas to save the planet" contest. A total of 1,775 proposals were submitted from around the world.
The Peruvian proposal was presented and supported in Washington by the scientist and Director of the Association of Glaciers of Peru, Eduardo Gold. Mekler recalled that Peru has 77% of the world's glaciers, and added that the original idea is to paint 3,000km of the mountains to reduce global warming by a half degree. The initiative will start with the painting of the Razuillca peak, with the support of the Regional Government of Ayacucho.
Keeping our eyes on the prize in architecturals requires careful monitoring of the DIY market, which is down worldwide, but particularly in the USA. Home Depot Inc.'s third-quarter earnings fell 8.9 percent as the weak housing and renovation markets continued to hurt demand, the nation's largest home-improvement retailer said Tuesday.
Cost cuts helped the company top expectations and led it to raise its full-year earnings guidance, but Home Depot did not raise its revenue outlook.
CEO Frank Blake said the company is still in "less bad" rather than positive territory for sales in stores open at least one year, average checkout receipts remains low and sales to contractors are under pressure.
But the company said sales during the quarter were strong in paint, plumbing, flooring, garden, kitchen and bath and building materials, reflecting strength in smaller do-it-yourself projects.
On Monday, Home Depot's smaller rival Lowe's Cos. reported third-quarter profit fell 30 percent as sales declined 3 percent. Lowe's also observed that some of the hardest-hit home markets are stabilizing and said it expects this year's fourth quarter to be stronger than last year's.
Home Depot's net income was $689 million, or 41 cents per share, for the quarter ended Nov. 1, topping analyst predictions of 36 cents per share. Revenue fell 8 percent to $16.36 billion, also ahead of the $16.27 billion analysts predicted.
Home Depot CEO Blake said the company is also seeing signs of stabilization. Of the company's top 40 markets, 36 showed a sequential improvement in sales in stores open at least one year, particularly in the markets hardest in during the housing downturn, including Florida, California and Arizona.
In other news, "With increasing pressure to reduce volatile organic compounds in the coatings industry, DD technology is helping to meet environmental regulations without compromising film performance," said paper author Andrew Swartz, Dow Coating Materials ...more
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In 2009 Empils became the only Russian manufacturer of paint and varnish which was able to achieve growth. According to the Federal State Statistics Service data, other companies from the Russian Top-10 have shown 10% - 69% decline in comparison with 2008 ...more
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Leading specialty chemicals company Perstorp, following a spate of recent acquisitions, will present a comprehensive overview of its extended product portfolio for the polyurethane chain at CHINACOAT 2009 ...more
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And finally, Ashland Inc. will join a consortium of companies and university experts to develop deploy and test three wind turbines off the Maine coastline ...more about this news
Thank you for reading the Industry Letter!
Best, Mark Drukenbrod
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