Two players in speciality chemicals, Elementis in the UK and W.R. Grace in the US, have both been approached with conditional takeover offers and have both rejected them in recent weeks.

Elementis announced on 12 November that it had received a preliminary conditional proposal from Minerals Technologies in relation to a possible cash offer at £1.07/share. Based on consultation with its financial adviser, it concluded that this “significantly undervalued Elementis and its future prospects” and the board unanimously rejected it.

Israel’s ICL has agreed to acquire Fertiláqua, one of Brazil’s largest speciality plant nutrition companies from private equity firm Aqua Capital for about $120 million. The company said that this will expand its portfolio and significantly enhance its customer base and presence across agriculture regions in Brazil.

Azelis has further strengthened its Asian personal care business by acquiring Bronson and Jacobs Hong Kong and its fully owned subsidiary in Shanghai from Ixom. The deal, for which terms were not disclosed, is expected to close by the end of the year.

Bronson and Jacobs China specialises in the distribution of personal care ingredients, mainly for skin care, for various global principals. It has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the latter also including a personal care laboratory.

Lonza has opened the first of two manufacturing suites at its main site in Visp, Switzerland, for the manufacture of antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) linkers or payloads. This came shortly after an unrelated deal to manufacture antibodies to treat COVID-19 for AstraZeneca and the arrival of a new CEO with a Big Pharma background.

IMCD has agreed to acquire the pharmaceutical business of Peak International Products, a Netherlands-based distributor of APIs in the Benelux, Vietnam, Germany and Israel. The business, which had sales of about €5.8 million in 2019, will be integrated into IMCD’s Pharmaceuticals business group.

Shortly before this, IMCD, the world’s fourth largest chemical distributor, completed the much larger acquisition of a 70% majority stake in Signet Excipients, a major Indian distributor of excipients, as part of its platform for further growth in India and the Asia-Pacific.

Merck KGaA, has announced a €20 million expansion of its OLED manufacturing capacity at sites in Pyeongtaek, Korea, and Shanghai, China. This comes in response to growing demand, the company said.

The investment will be spent on building a new modular production system to facilitate the installation of additional sublimation units. These units are central to material purity, which is one of the most important factors in the performance and lifetime of OLED devices.

Netherlands-based Barentz International, which is mainly a distributor of life science ingredients, has agreed to acquire Maroon Group of the US in a deal that will create a global force in the life science and broader specialty chemical industries. It has also acquired Singapore-based personal care product distributor Nardev. Financial terms were not disclosed in either transaction.