One joint venture will be focused on combining the two companies' European gel-coats, bonding pastes, pigment pastes and fire retardants businesses. The other will combine their existing European distribution activities.
Both joint ventures will be headquartered in Germany and are expected to start operations early in 2009, subject to approval of the relevant authorities.
BÜFA is one of Europe's biggest suppliers of resin specialities in the composite market, says Jürgen Aurer, Managing Director BÜFA Reaktionsharze GmbH & Co KG. The company's activities are based at its production facility in Rastede, North Germany.
“The key competencies of BÜFA and DSM are very complementary,” says Aurer. “Operating in a common business structure will allow us to offer an optimal portfolio of high quality gel-coats, fire retardant products, bonding pastes and pigment pastes to our customers.”
“Currently DSM Composite Resins owns Euroresins, the largest European composite distribution group,” says Michael Effing, President of DSM Composite Resins. “Our intention is to create a leading pan-European composite distributor together with BÜFA by combining DSM's and BÜFA's distribution activities under one umbrella. This combination will create a true pan-European distributor dedicated to the composite industry which can offer a complete, first class product portfolio to its customers, backed by superb technical service.”
In a separate announcement, Euroresins and PPG Industries unveiled a deal that will make Euroresins the leading distributor of PPG's chopped strand mat and spray-up roving across Europe. Euroresins will stop the distribution of Owens Corning Vetrotex (OCV) products and end its distribution agreement with other distributors in the area. The agreement with PPG, which came into effect on 1 January 2009, will see PPG's Mat 79, Mat 92 emulsion-bound mat and HYBON fibre glass roving products supported through Euroresins' network.
“This working relationship gives PPG the opportunity to focus our supply chain and selling resources in the critical European region,” says PPG Senior Vice President, Glass and Fiber Glass, Victoria M. Holt.
“This deal is the first of its kind in the European composite industry and represents a fantastic opportunity for our customers to be serviced with both premium fibre glass products and premium composite resins,” according to DSM's Effing. “This deal will allow increased efficiency and increased competitiveness for the customer.”