Kickstart: CDs still dominate in Japan; bringing the jungle to K

It turns out that Tower Records isn't just a part of Gen X's youthful memories. The retail company — still in the business of selling physical copies of CDs and vinyl records — has been big in Japan this whole time and is about to open its first U.S. branch since 2006.

The New York Times says the Nov. 4 opening of Tower Labs is intended as a site for "personal gatherings … similar to a backstage experience," but it will also sell limited editions of vinyl records and artist merchandise.

But David Brancaccio of public radio's Marketplace notes that Tower Records is far bigger than that. The current owner of the Tower Records brand is Japan-based NTT DoCoMo.

Patrick St. Michel, a freelance writer based in Tokyo, told Brancaccio that Tower Records stores are located all over the country, including a nine-story location in Tokyo's Shibuya neighborhood. Streaming services like Spotify were slower to emerge in Japan.

"And as a result, physical media, especially CDs have been the dominant mode of how people listen to music in the country, all the way until recently," St. Michel said.

Adding to that demand for recordings is a fan base eager to buy every special edition, remix or limited release, he said.

"Obviously, physical is the best way to hold on to that because you have ownership; there's no worries about it suddenly vanishing from the stream or a file being corrupted," he said.

More than $4 billion worth of materials changed hands on Nov. 1 as Avient Corp. completed its sale of its distribution business to the investment firm HIG Capital and Celanese Corp. completed its acquisition of DuPont Co.'s Mobility & Materials unit.

In both deals, familiar products will still be available, but under new corporate owners.

DuPont first announced the pending sale of its M&M business — a $3.5 billion portfolio that includes its nylon materials — for $11 billion in February.

Avient announced the $950 million deal in August for its distribution unit with more than $1.6 billion in annual sales.

Now called Formerra LLC, with a final headquarters location to be announced later this year, the new company will also have a familiar CEO: Cathy Dodd, who has led the business since 2020.

But not every deal comes to its expected end. DuPont also announced Nov. 1 that it had terminated its intended purchase of Rogers Corp., an acquisition first announced in November 2021. It said in a brief news release that it was unable to receive "timely clearance from all the required regulators."

When Germany-based Röchling Group brought its Industrial division to K 2022, it wanted to put the focus on green, in terms of the color as well as a reference to sustainable materials and finished parts.

The booth simulated a real jungle with real plants, authentic animals and special background noise. Exciting eye-catchers were a vintage car and life-size versions of a gorilla, chimpanzees and an orangutan in the trees.

Its booth debuted two materials, Röchling-BioBoom and Röchling- ReLoop, for bioplastics and recycled plastics.

The company touts Röchling- BioBoom for reducing the use of fossil raw materials. Several Röchling sites have already been certified with the ISCC Plus international sustainability standard for mass balanced bioplastics. Röchling-ReLoop is marketed as a high-quality recycled material. The company has a recycling plant in Geeste-Dalum, Germany, and plans to open more in the future.