Kaneka Corporation’s wholly owned subsidiary, Kaneka Americas Holding, Inc. and Applied Poleramic Inc., a formulated advanced resin supplier in the aerospace area have agreed to KAH’s acquisition of all of API’s shares and have entered into a Stock Purchase Agreement on June 19, 2017.
KAH shall acquire all of API’s stocks* for approximately USD 15 Million and API will become a consolidated subsidiary of KAH.
(*) The acquisition is subject to approval by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States and satisfaction of other customary conditions.
In the area of aerospace, there is a rapid growth for high performance composites in demanding applications such as engines, hot areas of the aircrafts, rockets and launch vehicles. Due to its superior properties over metal and metal alloys of: weight to strength ratio, heat-resistance and durability, Kaneka sees greater growth potential of this sub-segment than in the general structural composites market. We anticipate this sub-segment to grow more than 10% annually within the next 10 years or exceed USD 2 billion in market value.
Established in 1992, API possesses formulated advanced resin technology used in high performance composites. API has been a strategic supplier of high performance composites to OEM’s and their subcontractors. Kaneka currently also supplies high performance materials such as Polyimide films (Apical®) and resin modifiers (Kane Ace® MX) to the same key end customers. Kaneka sees the acquisition of API as a way of achieving an accelerated synergistic growth through the integration of advanced core technologies from both companies.
After the acquisition of API, Kaneka will continue to seek M&A and partnership opportunities to further strengthen growth, sales and market position of high performance composites in the area of aerospace. By 2025, Kaneka aims to achieve more than USD 200 Million in sales. Growth will be achieved by fully utilizing and uniting Kaneka global resources in corporate research, product research, and product development; located in institutes and research centers throughout Japan and North America.
Source: Kaneka
Neste Corporation’s Board of Directors has appointed Heikki Malinen, M.Sc. (Econ.), MBA (Harvard) as the President and CEO of Neste as of 2 November 2024, at the latest. Malinen joins Neste from Outokumpu Corporation where he has held the position of President and CEO since 2020.
Petrochemicals company Sasol has announced that CFO and executive director Hanré Rossouw will step down from his position, effective October 31. Sasol has started the process to appoint a successor. Rossouw will still oversee the publication of Sasol’s reports for the financial year ending June 30, to allow for a structured handover period.
Chemours announced its CFO Jonathan Lock has resigned from all positions within the company, according to an SEC 8-K filing on April 23. The resignation comes in the aftermath of the company announcing that Lock, former CEO Mark Newman, and principal accounting officer Camela Wisel, had been placed on administrative leave.
