Good morning everyone – An interesting tale is unfolding in the region as a DuPont spin-off is put into play.
A few years ago, Axalta – the former DuPont coatings operation that may have been best known for its sponsorship of NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon – was sold to a private equity firm for about $5 billion.
Axalta moved quickly to get out from under the DuPont umbrella. It opted to locate in nearby Pennsylvania, with its headquarters opening in suddenly fashionable Philadelphia.
It was not good news for Delaware as hundreds of jobs moved out of the state to sites in Glen Mills and Philly.
The sale caused some heartburn for management a couple of years later when activist shareholder Nelson Peltz claimed DuPont got too little when it sold the business.
Peltz lost his fight for DuPont board seats but won the war with the Dow merger
Late last month, Dutch coatings and paint maker AkzoNobel disclosed it was in talks to acquire Axalta. That news sent the market value of Axalta to $8 billion, although the Dutch company took pains to note that there was no assurance a deal can be struck.
Earlier, Akzo/Nobel rebuffed a takeover offer from U.S. paint and glass giant PPG. That left a lot of unhappy shareholders and AkzoNobel scrambling to provide evidence of a winning strategy.
A merger would create global coatings giant as well as cost-cutting opportunities.
A merger could also offer a preview of the future for the three companies that will be spun from DowDuPont, although the spin-offs will be much larger and more diverse than Axalta. – Doug Rainey, publisher
