AKRON, OHIO — A. Schulman Inc.'s bid for Ferro Corp. is featured in this week's Material Insights video.
Schulman — a leading compounder and concentrates maker in Fairlawn, Ohio — has bid $855 million for Ferro, a Mayfield Heights, Ohio-based specialty chemicals firm that gets about 30 percent of its sales from plastics-related businesses. Ferro has rejected the bid, but market analysts expect Ferro to make a second, larger offer.
Fines and settlements surrounding Dow Chemical Co. also are featured in this week's video. The plastics and chemicals giant is appealing a $400 million fine from the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged price-fixing in markets for polyurethane feedstocks. Dow also was awarded another $318 million in damages connected to the breakup of its K-Dow plastics deal. The total that Dow will receive from Petrochemical Industries Co. of Kuwait now is close to $2.5 billion.
The video wraps up with a prediction of higher growth for the biopolymers markets. Biopolymers' share of global plastics production is expected to grow from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 3 percent in 2020, according to a study from the Nova Institute in Germany. Most of that growth is expected to take place in Asia and South America.