Speciality chemicals firm SRF Ltd has acquired US-based E.l. DuPont De Nemours and Company (DuPont's) pharma propellant business including the brand Dymel for $20 million (Rs 128 crore) in cash, as per a stock market disclosure.
Dymel provides a non-ozone depleting alternative propellant for use in the pharma industry. This business is part of the performance chemicals segment which DuPont anticipates separating by mid-2015.
Post acquisition, SRF will own DuPont’s ‘Dymel’ brand and receive the technology and know-how for setting up its own ‘current good manufacturing practices’ (cGMP) facility for manufacturing HFC 134a Pharma grade.
DuPont will supply SRF the product from its existing facility till SRF’s facility is approved.
“This acquisition is in sync with our long term strategy to move up the value chain and will enable us to enter the niche pharma product segment. The growth in the Metered Dose Inhalers (MDI) sector is expected to be reasonably robust in the years to come and with India playing a major role in this sector we are ideally positioned to take benefit of this opportunity. This will also offer great synergy with our existing HFC plants going forward," said Ashish Bharat Ram, managing director of SRF.
“DuPont is making this move to enable a stronger focus on developing and commercializing the company’s new family of products. We believe this business is an excellent fit for SRF, which already supplies to the pharmaceutical industry," said Kathryn K. McCord, global business director, DuPont Fluorochemicals.
Dymel also has applications in consumer and other industries. That line of the product is not part of this transaction.
Established in 1970, SRF is the one of the only Indian manufacturers of the grade of hydro fluoro carbon HFC 134a. For SRF, this transaction provides immediate access to DuPont’s technology, brand and customers, thus enabling an instant entry into the niche pharmaceutical segment at a global level.
SRF is engaged in the manufacture of chemical based industrial intermediates. Its business portfolio covers technical textiles, fluorochemicals, specialty chemicals, packaging films and engineering plastics. It has two plants for manufacture of technical grade of HFC 134a.
