If at first you don't succeed, file your IPO again.
That's the story for Berwyn, Pa.-based materials firm Styron LLC. The firm hopes to raise as much as $200 million in an initial public offering at an unspecified date, according to a March 14 filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm had filed for an IPO in June 2011, but withdrew that filing in June 2013.
Styron will file the new IPO as Trinseo SA. The firm has been moving toward that name change since 2011, but still uses both names.
Funds raised by the stock offering would be used to pay down debt, for working capital and for general corporate purposes, officials said in the filing. No stock exchange or target per-share price was listed in the filing.
Styron was formed in 2011 when private equity firm Bain Capital LLC of Boston paid $1.6 billion for the styrenics businesses of Dow Chemical Co. The firm's assets include a 50 percent stake in Americas Styrenics, a joint venture it operates with Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.
Styron is looking to rebound in 2014 after posting a loss of $22.2 million in 2013. The firm — which employs 2,100 worldwide — had earned a profit of $30.3 million in 2012. Styron's sales in 2013 also fell almost 3 percent to just over $5.3 billion.
The firm's styrenics unit — including its share in Americas Styrenics — fared better in 2013, with sales growing more than 7 percent to just over $2.3 billion. Sales in Styron's engineered polymers unit, however, fell almost 2 percent to just under $1.04 billion.
At the K 2013 trade show in October, Styron debuted new grades of Velvex-brand reinforced elastomer compounds that are being used in instrument panels for the auto sector. Plastics business president Martin Pugh said at the event that the firm was seeing growth in both the automotive and electrical/electronics sectors.
