Henkel to acquire adhesives business from National Starch

Henkel KgaA has announced that it will acquire the adhesives and electronic materials businesses of National Starch and Chemical Company of Bridgewater, NJ, USA, a subsidiary of ICI plc. The acquisition is conditional on the successful completion of the takeover of ICI by Akzo Nobel.

Henkel, based in Düsseldorf, Germany, is a producer of well known products such as Dial soap, Right Guard antiperspirants and Purex laundry detergent. It also has an Adhesives Technologies division.

The National Starch businesses to be acquired realized sales of about €1.85 billion in 2006 and would increase sales of the Adhesives Technologies business unit to approximately €7.3 billion, around half the total sales of Henkel.

“We expect significant synergies and a substantial improvement of our growth and profit prospects to arise from the planned combination,” says Ulrich Lehner, Henkel’s chairman.