The Urethane Blog
Everchem Updates
VOLUME XXI
September 14, 2023
Everchem’s exclusive Closers Only Club is reserved for only the highest caliber brass-baller salesmen in the chemical industry. Watch the hype video and be introduced to the top of the league: — read more
December 21, 2021
HOUSTON (ICIS)–US-based Hexion on Monday has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by private equity American Securities for $2.06bn, including the assumption of around $1.24bn in net debt for a total enterprise value of around $3.3bn.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2022 and is conditioned upon the closing of Hexion’s previously announced sale of its epoxy business to Westlake Chemical.
The purchase price represents a 15% premium to the closing price as of 17 December and a 53% premium to the company’s closing share price on 30 July, the day prior to its announcement of its ongoing strategic review.
“This transaction, along with the pending sale of our epoxy business, is the conclusion of a comprehensive evaluation of strategic actions aimed at maximising value for our shareholders and best positioning the company for long-term growth,” said Hexion CEO Craig Rogerson.
Hexion, after agreeing in late November to sell its epoxy business for $1.2bn to Westlake, was planning an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange along with a sale in a dual track. The remaining adhesives and versatic acids business had sales of $1.38bn and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $272m in 2020.
Earlier in a November interview with ICIS, Hexion CEO Craig Rogerson said he was considering a “sale of Hexion or either of the parts”. The company in April closed the sale of its phenolic specialty resins, hexamine and European-based forest products resins businesses to Black Diamond and Investindustrial for $425m.
www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2021/12/20/10717799/private-equity-firm-acquires-hexion-for-2-06bn/
December 20, 2021
Arsenal’s Seal For Life Acquires Mascoat and Verdia NEW YORK, December 17, 2021 – Arsenal Capital Partners (“Arsenal”), a private equity firm that specializes in investments in industrial growth companies, announced today that its global industrial coatings platform, Seal For Life Industries (“Seal For Life”), has acquired Mascoat Ltd. (“Mascoat”) and Verdia, Inc. (“Verdia”), both privately owned specialty industrial coatings companies.
Mascoat, based out of Houston, TX, has been a leading manufacturer of thermal insulation coatings, anti-condensation, and sound damping coatings since 1995. The company serves a wide variety of industries with its coatings such as industrial, marine, commercial, and automotive applications. Mascoat has helped to develop new ways to solve corrosion under insulation with its insulation coatings and pioneered the use of its sound damping and anti-condensation coatings to the commercial and yacht sectors. The company has locations in The Netherlands and China, in addition to its base in Houston.
George More, President, CEO, and Founder of Mascoat, said, “We are delighted to become part of the Seal For Life platform. The combination of Mascoat’s industry-leading insulation and protective coatings with Seal For Life’s extensive coatings portfolio and global footprint will allow us to reach additional markets and customers, and will provide customers even more high-performance solutions to protect their critical infrastructure assets.”
Verdia is a leading polymer flooring manufacturer in the United States with deep expertise in polyurethane concrete flooring systems and offers a complete line of epoxies, polyurethane, and polyaspartics formulations. Inc. Magazine recognized Verdia as one of the Fastest Growing Companies in America for 2019. Verdia has been awarded USDA certification for its bio-based polyurethane floor coating produced from renewable and sustainable polymer sources. Verdia provides superior products, unparalleled customer service, and industry-leading technical support and focuses on providing long-lasting and environmentally conscious polymer solutions. The company is based in Conroe, TX.
Tony Crowell, President, CEO, and Founder of Verdia, remarked, “Joining the Seal For Life platform provides Verdia with the critical mass and market access it needs to continue its remarkable growth trajectory. Our customers consider polymeric floor coatings as critical technology for protecting their high-value infrastructure assets, and we look forward to expanding applications of our highly sustainable products around the world.”
Jeff Oravitz, CEO of Seal For Life, remarked, “We are very pleased to welcome the Mascoat and Verdia teams to the Seal For Life family, and look forward to working with them to accomplish our vision of being the leading global provider of protective coating and sealing solutions for infrastructure markets. The incorporation of these highly specialized industrial coatings companies into the Seal For Life platform increases our global scale and the ability to meet the needs of our many global customers.”
Aaron Wolfe, an Investment Partner of Arsenal, said, “Mascoat and Verdia bring exceptional coatings technologies to the Seal for Life platform and have an excellent market reputation for providing the highest level of performance and quality to meet demanding customer requirements. These businesses provide highly complementary technologies and build further scale for Seal For Life. We look forward to supporting these teams and investing in inorganic growth and completing additional acquisitions to continue to build Seal For Life’s position in the broader protective coatings and sealing solutions space for infrastructure applications.”
About Seal For Life Seal For Life provides corrosion prevention, waterproofing, fire and heat protection, and insulation products. The company offers industrial liquid coating products to protect critical infrastructure, heat shrink sleeves to protect pipeline joints from corrosion and degradation, cathodic protection products, visco-elastic adhesive solutions to protect assets from corrosion and water ingress; and cold-applied, single wrap and fused tape products. It offers products for many markets, such as marine, splash zone and underwater installation, renewable energy, onshore oil, gas, and water pipelines, insulation, casing filler, flooring, refinery, linings, cathodic protection, cables and wires, and waste water applications. Visit www.sealforlife.com for more information.
About Arsenal Capital Partners Arsenal is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in middle-market industrials and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds of more than $7.0 billion, completed more than 200 platform and add-on investments, and achieved more than 30 realizations. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value–add. For more information, please visit www.arsenalcapital.com.
December 20, 2021
Arsenal’s Seal For Life Acquires Mascoat and Verdia NEW YORK, December 17, 2021 – Arsenal Capital Partners (“Arsenal”), a private equity firm that specializes in investments in industrial growth companies, announced today that its global industrial coatings platform, Seal For Life Industries (“Seal For Life”), has acquired Mascoat Ltd. (“Mascoat”) and Verdia, Inc. (“Verdia”), both privately owned specialty industrial coatings companies.
Mascoat, based out of Houston, TX, has been a leading manufacturer of thermal insulation coatings, anti-condensation, and sound damping coatings since 1995. The company serves a wide variety of industries with its coatings such as industrial, marine, commercial, and automotive applications. Mascoat has helped to develop new ways to solve corrosion under insulation with its insulation coatings and pioneered the use of its sound damping and anti-condensation coatings to the commercial and yacht sectors. The company has locations in The Netherlands and China, in addition to its base in Houston.
George More, President, CEO, and Founder of Mascoat, said, “We are delighted to become part of the Seal For Life platform. The combination of Mascoat’s industry-leading insulation and protective coatings with Seal For Life’s extensive coatings portfolio and global footprint will allow us to reach additional markets and customers, and will provide customers even more high-performance solutions to protect their critical infrastructure assets.”
Verdia is a leading polymer flooring manufacturer in the United States with deep expertise in polyurethane concrete flooring systems and offers a complete line of epoxies, polyurethane, and polyaspartics formulations. Inc. Magazine recognized Verdia as one of the Fastest Growing Companies in America for 2019. Verdia has been awarded USDA certification for its bio-based polyurethane floor coating produced from renewable and sustainable polymer sources. Verdia provides superior products, unparalleled customer service, and industry-leading technical support and focuses on providing long-lasting and environmentally conscious polymer solutions. The company is based in Conroe, TX.
Tony Crowell, President, CEO, and Founder of Verdia, remarked, “Joining the Seal For Life platform provides Verdia with the critical mass and market access it needs to continue its remarkable growth trajectory. Our customers consider polymeric floor coatings as critical technology for protecting their high-value infrastructure assets, and we look forward to expanding applications of our highly sustainable products around the world.”
Jeff Oravitz, CEO of Seal For Life, remarked, “We are very pleased to welcome the Mascoat and Verdia teams to the Seal For Life family, and look forward to working with them to accomplish our vision of being the leading global provider of protective coating and sealing solutions for infrastructure markets. The incorporation of these highly specialized industrial coatings companies into the Seal For Life platform increases our global scale and the ability to meet the needs of our many global customers.”
Aaron Wolfe, an Investment Partner of Arsenal, said, “Mascoat and Verdia bring exceptional coatings technologies to the Seal for Life platform and have an excellent market reputation for providing the highest level of performance and quality to meet demanding customer requirements. These businesses provide highly complementary technologies and build further scale for Seal For Life. We look forward to supporting these teams and investing in inorganic growth and completing additional acquisitions to continue to build Seal For Life’s position in the broader protective coatings and sealing solutions space for infrastructure applications.”
About Seal For Life Seal For Life provides corrosion prevention, waterproofing, fire and heat protection, and insulation products. The company offers industrial liquid coating products to protect critical infrastructure, heat shrink sleeves to protect pipeline joints from corrosion and degradation, cathodic protection products, visco-elastic adhesive solutions to protect assets from corrosion and water ingress; and cold-applied, single wrap and fused tape products. It offers products for many markets, such as marine, splash zone and underwater installation, renewable energy, onshore oil, gas, and water pipelines, insulation, casing filler, flooring, refinery, linings, cathodic protection, cables and wires, and waste water applications. Visit www.sealforlife.com for more information.
About Arsenal Capital Partners Arsenal is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in middle-market industrials and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds of more than $7.0 billion, completed more than 200 platform and add-on investments, and achieved more than 30 realizations. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value–add. For more information, please visit www.arsenalcapital.com.
December 19, 2021
Africa’s Biggest Economies
by Tyler DurdenSunday, Dec 19, 2021 – 08:45 AM
With a total GDP of $432.3 billion, Nigeria has become the biggest economy on the African continent over the last 30 years. While the five highest spots on this ranking have been more or less constant over the last three decades, Statista’s Florian Zandt notes that the rest of the top 8 are subject to bigger fluctuations as our chart shows.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Libya, for example, managed to come in sixth in 1990 and 2005, but dropped out of the top 8 and only made the 17th rank in 2020. One of the most probable reasons for this dropoff is the Second Libyan Civil War. The multi-sided conflict started in 2014 in the aftermath of the election results of 2012 putting the General National Congress into power. Kenya, on the other hand, passed a new constitution in 2010 which limited the power held by the country’s president and enabled business and technology centers like Nairobi to grow. The city is now home to the African offices of Google, Coca-Cola, IBM and Cisco, among others.
Nigeria’s first place is largely attributable to its rapidly expanding financial sector, which grew from one percent of the total GDP in 2001 to ten percent in 2018, and its role as one of the world leaders in petroleum exports. The growing tech hub of Lagos, the second-largest metropolitan area in Africa and among the largest in the world, is also likely to further bolster Nigeria’s growth in the coming years, even though the divide between the part of the population living in slums without access to basic sanitation and its upper class making the city one of the most expensive in the world is likely to grow as well. This is also reflected in its comparably low GDP per capita of $2,100. When considering this indicator, Nigeria doesn’t even make the top 10 in Africa.
Of the 54 countries in Africa, only four countries made the top 50 of all nations with the highest GDP according to data from World Bank. The top spots on this list are reserved for the US, China, Japan and Germany, whose residents generate a combined GPD of $45 trillion, a whopping 50 percent of the global GDP.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/africas-biggest-economies
December 19, 2021
Africa’s Biggest Economies
by Tyler DurdenSunday, Dec 19, 2021 – 08:45 AM
With a total GDP of $432.3 billion, Nigeria has become the biggest economy on the African continent over the last 30 years. While the five highest spots on this ranking have been more or less constant over the last three decades, Statista’s Florian Zandt notes that the rest of the top 8 are subject to bigger fluctuations as our chart shows.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Libya, for example, managed to come in sixth in 1990 and 2005, but dropped out of the top 8 and only made the 17th rank in 2020. One of the most probable reasons for this dropoff is the Second Libyan Civil War. The multi-sided conflict started in 2014 in the aftermath of the election results of 2012 putting the General National Congress into power. Kenya, on the other hand, passed a new constitution in 2010 which limited the power held by the country’s president and enabled business and technology centers like Nairobi to grow. The city is now home to the African offices of Google, Coca-Cola, IBM and Cisco, among others.
Nigeria’s first place is largely attributable to its rapidly expanding financial sector, which grew from one percent of the total GDP in 2001 to ten percent in 2018, and its role as one of the world leaders in petroleum exports. The growing tech hub of Lagos, the second-largest metropolitan area in Africa and among the largest in the world, is also likely to further bolster Nigeria’s growth in the coming years, even though the divide between the part of the population living in slums without access to basic sanitation and its upper class making the city one of the most expensive in the world is likely to grow as well. This is also reflected in its comparably low GDP per capita of $2,100. When considering this indicator, Nigeria doesn’t even make the top 10 in Africa.
Of the 54 countries in Africa, only four countries made the top 50 of all nations with the highest GDP according to data from World Bank. The top spots on this list are reserved for the US, China, Japan and Germany, whose residents generate a combined GPD of $45 trillion, a whopping 50 percent of the global GDP.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/africas-biggest-economies
Everchem Updates Archive 
Sign Up for Email Updates