A chemical plant employing more than 100 people on Teesside has been sold to one of the largest chemical manufacturing companies in the Americas.
Lotte Chemicals, which has a plant at Wilton that produces around 350,000 of polyester resins each year, has been sold to Alpek, which employs more than 5,000 people in North, South and Central America, with its base in Mexico.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it is understood that the parties hope to conclude the sale by the end of the year, subject to Government approvals.
The deal comes not long after Lotte - which had been owned by a South Korean parent company - announced “exceptional” results for 2018 in which turnover grew 24% and profit also rose.
José de Jesús Valdez, Alpek’s CEO, said: “This acquisition is well aligned with Alpek’s growth strategy, creating substantial value by integrating the asset into our global polyester footprint, marking our first acquisition outside of the Americas, and growing our current worldwide PET (Polyethylene Terephtalate) capacity to 2.8m tons.
“Moving forward, our team is focused on executing a seamless integration to capitalize on existing momentum and capture synergies.”
In September Lotte released accounts showing that turnover rose from £245.5m in 2017 to £321.4m last year. That performance saw the company recover from a £5.6m loss a year earlier to post a £33.3m profit in what the company said was an “exceptional year” for the European PET resin market.
The accounts saw the company sounding a note of caution about how its sales in Europe would be affected by Brexit, however.
Lotte’s most recent figures show a workforce of 126 at Wilton, with the company active in the local community.