French Firm on Buying Spree in U.S., Britain
Chemicals group Rhone-Poulenc said Wednesday that it was spending more than $1 billion on big acquisitions in the United States and Britain, joining the recent rush of French companies to take over foreign firms.
The purchases from RTZ of Britain and the U.S. firm GAF would help the French group reinforce its strong position in specialty chemicals but was unlikely to promote it from ninth place in the table of world chemical sales, industry analysts said.
The state-controlled group said it would pay $480 million for GAF-SSC, whose main product is chemicals used as separating agents in detergents and for water and sewage treatment.
It said it would buy RTZ’s chemicals activities for $803 million.
“We are complementing our policy of internal growth by strategic acquisitions when the opportunity presents itself,” Rhone-Poulenc Chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou said.
Other major French moves abroad this year have included BSN’s purchase of U.S. group Nabisco’s five European snack businesses, cement maker Lafarge Coppee’s acquisition of Switzerland’s Cementia Holdings AG and insurer Groupe Victoire’s merger with West Germany’s Colonia Versicherung AG.
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