Akzo Nobel announced yesterday evening that it has finalized the earlier announced sale of its Building Adhesives business to Sika, valuing the business at € 260m.
Recall that the transaction was first announced in August. Building Adhesives generated annual revenues of € 185m in 2012. Profitability of the business was not disclosed. Building Adhesives employs about 550 employeesand had two manufacturing facilities, in Rosendahl (Germany) and Damville (France).
Recall that the sale of Building Adhesives follows a strategic review which highlighted it was a standalone business within Akzo’s Decorative Paints business, primarily serving the professional market in North Western Europe with a portfolio of brands and products including floor and wall levelling compounds, floor adhesives, tile setting, sealants and floor finishes.
Furthermore, Akzo Nobel issued a second press release this morning, about restructuring initiatives in its Deco Paints business. The company will be simplifying its Decorative Paints business by reducing the number of senior management teams and will organize the business in five regions instead of eight (North and Central Europe, South East Europe and Africa, India and South East Asia, Latin America, China and North Asia). A number of functions will be centralized, including R&D, HR, sourcing, supply chain, etc.
Our View:
We assume the announced Deco Paintsrestructuring is part of Akzo’s earlier announced restructuring program on top of its Profit Improvement Program, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year with targeted savings of € 500m. Recall that Akzo increased, at the time of the 2Q13 results release, guidance of restructuring costs in 2013 from € 205m to € 325m (so +€ 120m), with scheduled additional savings to be achieved post 2013 of about € 100m.
The Building Adhesives transaction is fairly small compared to Akzo’s total size, although it proves the company’s new CEO is scrutinizing the portfolio for optimization opportunities along with cost efficiency measures as discussed above. We will adjust our model to incorporate the exact timing of closing of this transaction.
We stick to our Accumulate rating and € 53 target price.