KaiserTech Chemical Unit to Be Sold for $264 Million
In the latest move to shed all but its aluminum businesses, KaiserTech Ltd. said Tuesday that it has agreed to sell its Harshaw-Filtrol Corp. specialty chemicals unit for $264 million in cash.
Cleveland-based Harshaw-Filtrol, with 2,100 employees worldwide, accounts for about half the annual revenue of KaiserTech’s industrial and specialty chemicals division that last year had sales of $254 million. The operation will be acquired by Edison, N.J.-based Engelhard Corp., a leader in specialty chemical and metallurgical products that earned $57.1 million on sales of $2.3 billion in the first nine months of this year.
Reduce Debt
Efforts are under way to find buyers for the rest of that division. The remaining operations have 680 employees in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oklahoma, Utah and Louisiana, the firm said.
The company, which announced in July that it would seek to sell the division, did not say if talks with prospective buyers are under way.
In 1986, the entire industrial and specialty chemicals division posted an operating profit of $45.9 million, including one-time gains of $18.5 million because of changes in pension funding and $13 million because of cancellation of a long-term gas-supply contract.
In recent years, the company has shed its agricultural chemical, real estate and oil and gas operations.
“Today’s announcement and the previously announced sales of other assets are part of a business restructuring that is intended to improve the company’s financial performance and enhance value for its shareholders,” said James S. Pasman Jr., who on Jan. 1 will become president and chief executive of KaiserTech, as well as continuing as chairman and chief executive of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.
Pasman noted that the restructuring is designed to reduce debt by selling assets and improving cash flow and to retain an aluminum business focused where the company is strongest and prospects for operating profits are greatest.
Most proceeds from the sale of Harshaw-Filtrol will be used to further reduce KaiserTech’s debt, which currently is about $950 million.
For the first nine months of this year, Kais erTech had revenue of $1.57 billion and a net loss of $406.8 million, or $9.05 per share, including the writedown of $387 million in the value of assets.
In the first nine months of 1986, it had revenue of $1.53 billion and a net loss of $17.2 million, including the $31.5 million in gains from the pension changes and canceled gas-supply contract.
