W. R. Grace & Co. has announced via press release the completion of its acquisition of the Fine Chemistry Services business (“FCS”) of Albemarle Corporation for approximately $570 million. The transaction involves $300 million paid in cash and $270 million funded through the issuance to Albemarle of non-participating preferred equity of a newly created Grace subsidiary.
“This investment represents an important step forward in Grace’s growth strategy. FCS brings compelling innovation and manufacturing capabilities to our Materials Technologies business, enabling us to better serve our customers with high-value solutions that span every stage of their development cycle,” said Hudson La Force, Grace’s President and Chief Executive Officer in the press release. “We are thrilled to welcome the FCS team to Grace and look forward to leveraging their deep expertise to strengthen and expand our fast-growing pharma portfolio.”
“FCS builds on the strengths of our Materials Technologies portfolio by expanding our expertise and offerings and further deepens our position in high growth pharma markets such as oncology, diabetes, cardiovascular, and antiviral. The talented and engaged team shares our values and vision to be indispensable to our customers. Our customers will be delighted with the benefits of the combined innovation and manufacturing capabilities,” said Sandra Wisniewski, President, Grace Materials Technologies in the release.
Pharma & Consumer is the largest, fastest growing and most profitable subsegment within Grace’s Materials Technologies business. According to the release, FCS adds a comprehensive portfolio of high-value products and services with highly complementary analytical, regulatory and manufacturing capabilities to Grace’s existing pharma portfolio focused on chromatographic resins, formulation excipients and drug delivery, pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
