Advent’s $3.3 Billion Roehm Deal Looks to Rekindle Chemical Icon

  • Roehm seeks to broaden customer base beyond auto industry
  • Company is looking for partners for potential Gulf Coast plant
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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Advent International is following up its $3.3 billion acquisition of Evonik Industries AG’s plastics division with a plan to broaden the unit’s customer base to make it less dependent on carmakers.

Advent aims to build a factory using a new technology for the unit, which was rebranded as Roehm to highlight its links with a historic German chemicals company. Automakers, which account for as much as a quarter of Roehm’s sales, have been at the center of trade tensions between the U.S., China and the European Union, which has had a knock-on effect on the chemicals industry.