Material Insights: Jan. 3, 2013

A quartet of year-end materials deals are featured in this week's Material Insights video. Resin distributor M. Holland kicked off the year-end spree by acquiring commodity and engineering resins distributor Christler Chemical & Plastics for an undisclosed price. For Holland, it's the first acquisition in the firm's more than 60-year history. The Holland-Christler deal quickly was followed by PolyOne Corp.'s purchase of advanced composites firm Glasforms Inc., Arsenal Capital buying polyurethane and vinyl plastisol maker Dash Multi-Corp. and Invista Engineering Polymers picking up a nylon compounding and recycling plant in Born, the Netherlands. The Dash deal was the fifth plastics deal of the year for Arsenal, a New York-based private equity firm. This week’s video wraps up with a victory lap for several publicly held plastics materials firms that had big years on Wall Street in 2012. Per-share stock prices at PVC maker Georgia Gulf more than doubled through mid-December, climbing 120 percent. PVC and polyethylene maker Westlake Chemical almost duplicated that feat, posting a 96 percent price gain. Materials makers PolyOne, Huntsman, Eastman Chemical and Omnova Solutions each also had standout years, posting per-share price gains of 50-75 percent.