France’s Arkema has announced two transactions of very different scales. Both are described as “a new step in the group’s transformation, and is fully in line with Arkema’s ambition to become a pure speciality materials player by 2024”.

The company has agreed to divest its polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) business to materials player Trinseo for an enterprise value of €1,137 million, or 9.3x estimated EBITDA for 2020. This includes seven sites in Europe and North America, which employ about 860 people and are expected to turn over €510 million this year.

Croda International has acquired Spanish-based flavours and fragrances (F&F) firm Iberchem from Eurazeo in a €820 million deal. This takes the company into F&F for the first time. It will be funded by existing debt facilities and a £600 equity placing, representing about 8% of Croda’s issued share capital.

Pharmaceutical CDMO Piramal Pharma Solutions (PPS) is to invest about $32 million to expand its former Ash Stevens API manufacturing site at Riverview, Michigan. This will add 2,300 m² of space, including 780 m² of production space.

Agrifood giant Cargill is joining forces with two French companies to further develop and scale biobased acrylic acid based on a lactic acid technology it licensed in from Procter & Gamble earlier this year. This is claimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in production by 50% compared with conventional means of production.

Lonza has recently announced three specific investments in the pharma sector in recent weeks. It will build two new customer-dedicated conjugation suites for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) at Visp, Switzerland, while adding particle engineering and drug product development at two sites in the US.

Pharmaceutical CDMO Sterling Pharma Solutions has announced a new strategic partnership with ADC Biotechnology, a specialist in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Both companies are UK-based.

Sterling will make an unspecified but significant investment in ADC Bio with a view to acquiring it in Q1 2021, subject to due diligence. The businesses will then work together to develop an integrated service offering for existing and potential customers, which combines ADC Bio’s expertise with Sterling’s in high potency small molecules.

Under the newly announced Project AIR, Perstorp plans to build a first-of-its-kind, commercial-scale carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) unit to produce sustainable methanol via a combined CCU and gasification process at its site in Stenungsund, Sweden (pictured). Depending on securing grants to finance it, the aim is start producing in 2025.