Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, announced it completed the sale of its 45% equity investment in the Polyplastics joint venture to Daicel Corporation for $1.575 billion, as originally announced on July 20.
Through this transaction, Celanese monetized a historically passive investment and expects to deploy the proceeds from this all-cash transaction into higher value-generating opportunities. These include the previously announced increase in share repurchases that will be accretive to EPS to offset earnings from the Polyplastics joint venture, investments in organic growth, and other judicious uses of cash consistent with Celanese’s disciplined capital deployment strategy.
As noted in the July 20, 2020, announcement, Celanese has been investing in and rapidly growing its own Engineered Materials base business globally over the last 10 years, independent of Polyplastics, with a footprint in Asia significantly greater now than when the Company entered the region more than 50 years ago through Polyplastics. The sale of Polyplastics is an intentional departure from a legacy relationship to a more contemporary approach to independently drive future growth, advance application development with customers, and pursue high-return expansion opportunities for the benefit of Celanese and its customers.
“Celanese is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory as we increase investment in new product development to serve customer demand in growth segments and key geographies,” said Tom Kelly, Senior Vice President, Engineered Materials, Celanese. “We will continue to invest in product expansion to serve the growing demand in applications such as 5G, advanced mobility, medical/pharma, and sustainable materials. Celanese also plans to expand its manufacturing capacity and advance its T&I capabilities in Asia to meet rapidly growing demand in the region.”
