Showa Denko acquires ILAG

Japan’s Showa Denko has acquired Swiss firm ILAG Industrielack from a consortium of investors led by Helvetica Capital on undisclosed terms. ILAG specialises in speciality non-stick coating chemicals (NSCs). It has the fourth largest market share in consumer goods applications, notably cookware, bakeware and electrical appliances, in Europe and the second largest worldwide, exporting to come 50 countries

The buy complements Showa’s 2017 acquisition of the GMM Group, which makes NSCs mainly for the US cookware and bakeware markets. NSCs are also used in industrial goods such as automotive parts and other industrial equipment, to prevent substances from sticking on their surfaces and to supporting low friction and release during use. The global market is estimated at about $1.2 billion/year.

Acquiring ILAG will give Showa Denko sales of some $60 million/year in the field. It also gives the company’s functional polymer/monomer business sector access to all of three raw material technologies used in NSCs, that is fluorinated resin- silicon- and sol-gel based coatings. As of July, the company will establish a new Coating Materials department “in order to manage its global NSC business, including ILAG and GMM, in an integrated manner”.