Customers look to benefit from Avient-Clariant deal

Avient Corp.'s recent acquisition of the masterbatches unit of Clariant AG is expected to create benefits for customers of both businesses.

The $1.4 billion acquisition, which closed July 1, "will make [Avient's] design services and color technology faster and more effective," Jennifer Prugh, vice president of marketing for Avient, said on a Nov. 19 online press event.

Avon Lake, Ohio-based Avient also changed its name from PolyOne Corp. on July 1. The Clariant deal adds 46 manufacturing sites and technology centers in 29 countries and about 3,500 employees to Avient's previous total.

The business being acquired has annual sales of $1.1 billion. It will operate as part of Avient's Color, Additives and Inks unit.

During the online press event, Woon Keat Moh, Americas and Asia president for Color, Additives and Inks, said the Clariant business "aligned with megatrends" of Avient's own color unit, including lightweighting, reducing packaging, improving recycling and making medical materials that reduce the spread of infection.

Markets served by both businesses include packaging, transportation, health care, consumer goods and fibers. Clariant also sold into agriculture markets, which Avient now has added.

"Innovation is the lifeblood of a specialty company," Moh said. "We can customize and specialize to give our customers what they need."

Even with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Avient has been able to innovate this year with several materials, including bio-derived colorants from plants, flowers and minerals.

Also in 2020, Avient's color unit has provided fiber additives for medical face masks. The additives are applied to meltblown nonwoven material in the middle layer of the mask. Charged fibers are more effective in keeping particles out, Moh explained.

Other new materials for the unit include a PET bottle additive that requires less energy to heat preforms, a light-blocking additive for titanium dioxide restrictions and an additive masterbatch concentrate that limits oxygen degradation in pharmaceutical packaging.

The Color, Additives and Inks unit is expected to post sales of $2 billion this year, according to Europe, Middle East, Africa President Michael Garratt. Packaging is the unit's single largest market, with 37 percent of sales, ahead of consumer goods at 22 percent.

Geographically, 39 percent of the unit's sales come from Europe, with 32 percent from the U.S. and Canada. Garratt said the combined unit is more balanced on a geographic level than its predecessors.

Companywide, Avient expects to post sales of $550 million from sustainable solutions in 2020. That amount would be up 34 percent vs. 2019. The firm has also set a goal of having all of its packaging applications recyclable or reusable by 2030. Garratt said currently 90 percent of its applications meet this requirement.

"Sustainability and the goal of a circular economy affect the future for all of us," he added. "We can work on these challenges together.

"Our strength is being able to create value for customers and shareholders. We have a broad portfolio that can enhance innovation, expand geographic reach and optimize manufacturing."