Merger and acquisition

There have been a large number of mergers and acquisitions since our 1998 Rapra report. Table 6.12 hsts a few of the changes taking place over the last foin years. 

Flame retardant companies have featured strongly in recent merger and acquisition activity. Manufacturers of halogenated FRs have been diversifying by buying smaller companies that produce other types of flame retardant, mainly phosphorus types and metal hydroxides. Great Lakes acquired the process additives division of FMC, which inclnded phosphorus FRs, and seemed some business components for use in its own water treatment business at the same time. The French part of Ferro was bought by Albemarle, which now makes PyroChek FRs. Albemarle pmchased Martinswerk, makers of ATH. 

Akzo Nobel sold its modest-sized plasticiser and flame retardant business to the American finance company Ripplewood Holdings in April 2004 for 320 M emos. The deal involved a phosphorus chemical manufacturing imit in Bitterfield, Germany and a factory in West Virginia that made phosphorus based FRs for use in polymethane foams, as well as plasticisers and lubricants. 

After a number of ownership changes, Rhodia Consumer Specialties Antiblaze FR business (once part of Albright and Wilson, Oldbury, UK) was sold to Polymer Tailoring of Shropshire in the UK. 

Alqemia is the new name for a group of companies involved with masterbatch production and additives. It was set up by the Israeli company Kafrit Industries following its pmchase of Constab Additive Polymers (UK) Ltd., Constab Polyolefin Additives GmbH and Areton International Plastics (UK) in late 2003. Alqemia has manufacturing operations in Israel, Germany and the UK. 

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The extent to which the current trend toward mergers and acquisitions continues in life sciences, and also the extent to which larger pharmaceutical companies outsource research and development to smaller companies. It may become necessary for rapid integration of systems between companies that had previously had no relationship at all, and for the secure integration of particular systems between collaborating companies. 

Newspaper headlines almost routinely announce mergers and acquisitions of electricity, natural gas and telecommunications companies, the shedding of generation assets, and new ventures in non-energy businesses - known as convergence. ... 

Hitt, M. A., Harrison, J. S., Sc Ireland, R. D. 2001. Mergers and Acquisitions A Guide to Creating Value for Stakeholders. New York Oxford University Press. 

The final screen that we applied to the sixty-two snrviving companies was our mergers and acquisitions (M A) screen. ITere onr pnrpose was to eliminate companies that prodnced a material part of their growth during 1997-2002 by acquisitions and not throngh internal, core, or organic growth. 

In generics, European, particularly German and Swiss, companies have captured the lion s share with half of the total top 10 sales revenues. After a period of intensive mergers and acquisitions, the pharma industry has reached... 

The development of new products for new markets (e.g., electronic chemicals for a fine-chemical company thus far dealing only with life sciences) is the task of corporate development. The latter is a staff function reporting to the CEO. It deals with activities outside the authority of the operating divisions. Apart from new products for new markets, it also looks after joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and divestitures. 

The pharmaceutical industry in industrialized countries experienced a high rate of merger and acquisition activity in the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the leading pharmaceutical firms in the OECD countries are the result of one or more horizontal mergers. For example, Pfizer is the combination of Pfizer, Warner-Lambert, and Pharmacia, which included Upjohn (Danzon, Epstein, and Nicholson 2003). 

Danzon, P., A. Epstein, and S. Nicholson. 2003. Mergers and Acquisitions in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industries. Social Science Research Network, 1-43. Available at http //papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm abstract id=468301 [Accessed May 10, 2005]. 

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2001. New Patterns of Industrial Globalization Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances. Paris. Available at http //www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,2546,en 2649 34557 1895829 119656 l l l,00.html [Accessed February 9, 2006]. 

Stahl, S.M. (1999) Mergers and acquisitions among psychotropics antidepressant takeover of anxiety may now be complete. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 60(5), 282 — 3. 

Educated inferences suggest that the field is thriving despite the limited publications on full process control installations. The number of Raman vendors is increasing, along with mergers and acquisitions activity. Additionally, the list of companies that have or are willing to publicly acknowledge their use of process Raman spectroscopy or advocate its utility is impressive. Some of these are listed in Table 5.2. 

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