“Our ambition is to turn Rhodia into a champion of profitable and responsible growth. We aim at generating a yearly EBITDA (excluding carbon credits) greater than €1 billion within the next three to five years. This represents a growth of around 40 per cent compared to 2010 expectations”, said Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, chairman and CEO of Rhodia.
Growth ambition focused on three key drivers
The France-based company will focus on organic growth in each market, innovation on products and processes committed to sustainable development, and external growth following the acquisition of Feixiang Chemicals, an Asian chemicals firm, earlier this year.
Rhodia plan to convert its current set of six ‘enterprises’ into the eleven ‘global business units’ specified, with plans to make each one a leader in its respective market.
Cosmetic market still key focus.
Novecare is the business unit which will continue to develop speciality surfactants and polymer-based solutions for the cosmetics market.
The unit will be headed by the CEO of Rhodia’s Enterprise Silcea Group, Emmanuel Butstraen. Other markets it will specialise in will be detergents, agrochemicals, coatings, oilfield, and industrial applications markets.
The Novecare division, which supplies high-performance ingredients to the cosmetics industry, registered a fall in sales of 14.8 per cent to €827m in 2009, providing stability compared to the 18 per cent loss in full sales.
Personal care one of Rhodia’s ‘resilient’ markets
Speaking in February, the company said that its home and personal care segment within this division had ‘remained resilient’ throughout the course of the year, boosted by the integration of the Mcintyre business.
The company’s operating profit results were healthier, with the recurring EBITDA Q4 figure rising 42 per cent to €200m, while the full year figure fell by 28 per cent to €487m.
This year, the company’s speciality surfactant production has been significantly increased in order to better respond to market demand.
Speciality surfactants can be used in products such as shampoos, conditioners and shower gels to bring benefits such as mildness and moisturisation to formulations based on commodity surfactants.
Clamadieu further indicated, during this week’s announcement, that “The Group continues to benefit from the strong market momentum enjoyed in the first two quarters of the year and which allowed Rhodia to generate record level of profitability”.
“We must foster responsiveness and entrepreneurial spirit to achieve our growth ambition. This leads us to adjust and simplify our organization with a view to make Global Business Units more responsible and more agile, while maintaining the Group’s unity” he explained.