At their AGM on 15 June, Brenntag shareholders voted for the company’s supervisory board candidates and rejected alternatives from ‘activist’ investor PrimeStone Capital, which has been agitating for a radical change in strategy. All of the motions proposed by the board were also approved, including a €2/share divided payout.

Richard Ridinger was re-elected as a member of the supervisory board with 62.71% of the votes cast, while Sujatha Chandrasekaran was newly elected with 61.79%. At its constituent meeting following the AGM, the supervisory board elected Ridinger as chairman.

Posco Holdings has held the groundbreaking ceremony for the first lithium hydroxide factory in South Korea, at the Yulchon Industrial Complex in South Jeolla province. The company will invest over $450 million up to completion in 2025. It will be able to produce about 25,000 tonnes/year, enough for some 600,000 electric vehicles.

Yulchon is already home to the Posco Future M subsidiary’s cathode material facility. A lithium ore plant is also being built there and it will eventually host a secondary battery material facility.

Oleon has opened what it claims to be “Europe's most innovative plant for the production of sustainable oleochemicals” at Oelegem, Belgium. Built a cost of €17.4 million, including €13.3 million in European subsidies, this will operate using only enzymes of natural origin and has 3,000 tonnes/year of capacity. It is connected by canal to Antwerp’s port.

Replique, a digital manufacturing start-up, has closed a late seed round led by digital technology investor STS Ventures and supported by ‘angel’ investors Chameleon and R3. The company claims to offer “the first fully encrypted 3D printing platform that makes spare part management and the production of small series more sustainable”.

Private equity firm Bain Capital has acquired Porus Laboratories of Hyderabad, India, subject to regulatory approval. Financial terms were not disclosed but values in the region of $300-365 million were mentioned during the process. CVC Capital and Advent International had also been interested in Porus, according to reports.

Chemours, DuPont and Corteva have reached an agreement in principle to resolve all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS)-related drinking water claims of a defined class of public water systems that serve “the vast majority of the US population”. They will pay about $592 million, $400 million and $193 million respectively into a settlement fund by 12 June.

Singapore-based Sustainable Chemistry for the Textile Industry (SCTI), an alliance of six major producers of leather and textile chemicals promoting sustainable chemistry in the industry, has joined forces with the chemical industry’s Together for Sustainability (TfS) initiative. They said that they will “collaborate in driving convergence in standards and methodologies and inspire industry action for a better future”.