UPL to split out specialities

Indian agrochemicals giant UPL has announced plans to transfer its speciality chemicals business, including agrochemical active ingredient (AI) manufacturing to its wholly owned subsidiary UPL Speciality Chemicals. This is subject to shareholder approval and should be completed in three to four months.

The business being spun off makes ingredients used in pharmaceuticals, paints, textiles, mining, personal care, flavours and fragrance, lubricants, water treatment, petroleum and oilfield products, in addition to crop protection, from 12 sites in India. It had revenues of €1,953 million in 2023, 32.6% of the company total.

UPL said that this is being done in order to “unlock shareholder value for the specialty chemicals business and scale it up at a faster pace. It also intends to accelerate growth in the AI business via more external partnerships, though hit will continue to sell them to UPL as well.

The internal sale, valued at just under €400 million, is being conducted as a slump sale. This is an Indian accounting term for the transfer of a whole or part of business concern as a going concern without values being assigned to any of the individual assets and liabilities.