While some were hunkering down during the global economic downturn, Röhm GmbH opened its wallet to make significant investments at operations around the world.
The Darmstadt, Germany-based acrylics maker has spent a total of $1.5 billion in improvements since private equity firm Advent International LP purchased Röhm in 2019, including a flurry of projects during the past few years.
There's been the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin production expansion at the company's Worms, Germany, site this year that has boosted production by about 25 percent and similar work at Röhm's Shanghai facility to increase output by about 30 percent.
The Worms location, the company's largest site making Plexiglas molding compounds, added a production line in February 2024. That location also added a compounding facility for colored PMMA production.
The company also is nearing completion of a new plant in Bay City, Texas, for the manufacture of methyl methacrylate precursor that is then polymerized to create PMMA, or acrylic, resin.
"We have a clear growth strategy as Röhm, and this is global," CEO Hans Bohnen said in a conversation on the Fakuma trade show floor. "So we do the investments upstream and downstream."
Röhm is the only maker of both MMA and PMMA with production and compounding in Asia, Europe and North America, said Siamak Djafarian, senior vice president for molding compounds at Röhm.
Röhm's acrylic output is sold under brand names including Plexiglas, PlexiMid and Cyrolite, depending on end market use. Röhm owns the Plexiglas brand name around the world except for the United States, where Trinseo sells under that name and Röhm uses the Acrylite brand.
Key markets for the company include industrial lighting, automotive, health care and construction.
Bohnen credits the company's financial backers at Advent International for being willing to invest a large sum of money "so you're ready when the market bounces back. ... It's all about reliability of supply."
Bohnen explained companies that hunker down during economic downturns run the risk of not being able to meet demand when markets return and start to grow again. "If the market bounces back, then everybody is looking for material. And if you have not invested in the downcycle, then usually you are short of material," he said.
"We are not short of material. We are there for our customers, and we are a reliable partner, and we can deliver the quantities," Bohnen said. "It's also thanks to our investor, Advent, that they were courageous enough to invest through the cycle."
Companies that wait until good times return to invest in expansion run the risk of not being able to actually see sales increase because of the construction time needed for projects, Djafarian said.
"If the market is up, you start to invest, the plan takes one to two years," he explained. "So it's always good to invest when the cycles are down than when it is up. When it's up, you come too late."
Part of the company's recent round of investments includes the development of the company's own research and innovation centers in Worms, Wallingford and Shanghai.
Röhm was established in 2019 when the methacrylate business of Evonik Industries AG was separated and sold to Advent.
Röhm GmbH
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