| Synthetic rubber and speciality chemical major Lanxess has underlined its progress since being spun off from Bayer with the announcement of a new headquarters in Cologne, Germany. The building, expected to house 500 of the company’s 8,000 employees, is scheduled to be completed in 2011.
At present, Lanxess personnel are located in a number of buildings throughout the Leverkusen site, home of Bayer, which is located just outside the city of Cologne.
The site will continue to play a fundamental role for Lanxess however, stressed ceo Axel Heitmann. “Leverkusen will remain our biggest and most important production location worldwide with the most employees,” he said.
Cologne has been showing impressive development as a commercial centre and has an infrastructure, “unique in North Rhine Westphalia,” Heitmann said.
News of the planned move accompanied the latest figures from the company which showed record results for the second quarter of this year. EBITDA reached �223m against �211m for the same period of last year on sales of �1.76bn (�1.73bn)
Boosted by the inclusion of figures from the Petroflex synthetic rubber business in Brazil, in which Lanxess took a 70% stake at the end of last year, and full recovery of raw material cost increases, Lanxess’s Performance Polymers arm raised its EBITDA pre exceptionals by nearly 37% to �127m (�93m). The division holds Lanxess’s synthetic rubber operations as well as its remaining polymer activities in nylon and PBT.
The group is predicting a full year EBITDA pre exceptionals of more than �700m and remains confident that automotive and tyre markets remain robust, due to strong demand from Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe. |
