ST. LOUIS — Monsanto Co.'s chemicals business soon will have a new corporate identity and a new name: Solutia Inc.
The independent, publicly owned company will begin life Sept. 1 with a business base that includes chemical intermediates, nylon resin, nylon and acrylic fibers and plastic interlayer for laminated glass.
Those and other products produced sales of $3 billion in 1996.
Solutia will own and operate 19 manufacturing plants in the United States, Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom. The company will employ 8,800.
Monsanto Executive Vice President Robert Potter will serve as chairman and chief executive officer of Solutia, which, like Monsanto, will be headquartered in St. Louis.
``We don't expect business as usual following the spin,'' Potter said in a news release. ``We expect business improvement.''