Evonik divests real estate stake to focus solely on specialty chemicals

By Andrew MCDOUGALL

- Last updated on GMT

Evonik divests real estate stake to focus solely on specialty chemicals

Related tags Investment Cosmetics Evonik

Ingredients supplier Evonik announces that it has divested its remaining 10.3% stake in the residential real estate company Vivawest in order to focus solely on the specialty chemicals business, of which cosmetics plays a big part.

Coalmining company RAG Aktiengesellschaft acquired Evonik’s stake, raising its own stake in the largest residential real estate company in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 7.9% to 18.2%.

"The divestment of our remaining shares in Vivawest is the final step in becoming a pure specialty chemicals company,”​ says Klaus Engel, Chairman of the Executive Board of Evonik Industries.

“In RAG we have found a trusted investor with a long-term investment horizon for our stake. Vivawest can therefore successfully pursue its route in sustainable real estate management.”

Evonik is one of the leaders in specialty chemicals and serves the skin care, hair care, and colour cosmetics markets.

Vivawest now has a stable ownership structure with four shareholders: RAG-Stiftung with a stake of 30%, The German Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE) holds 26.8%, Evonik Pensionstreuhand e.V., a contractual trust arrangement to secure the company pensions of Evonik employees, has a stake of 25%, with RAG Aktiengesellschaft making up the remaining 18.2%.

Strategy

Earlier this year, Evonik realigned its focus and strategy to ensure it best serves its customers. In the cosmetics industry, Evonik Personal Care announced a new management and strategy in place​ which it says is essentially ‘like a new business.’

With so many new formulations available, Evonik says that the market is getting tremendously complex and one of the challenges for formulators is to be familiar with the enormous amount of choices available, as parameters like sustainability and registration have to be taken into consideration to find the right product.

Sustainability and sensory properties were highlighted as the key areas for Evonik tjos year, and were the driving force behind the company’s newest concept formulations and processes to optimise costs on its emulsifiers.

This week the company also announced that its Board had ‘unanimously’ decided to terminate the contract of Patrik Wohlhauser​ as a member of the Executive Board and Chief Operating Officer.

Wohlhauser was succeeded by Dr Ralph Sven Kaufmann from July 1, 2015.

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