Ciba Specialty Chemicals sells polymers division

(AP) -- Ciba Specialty Chemicals said on Tuesday it is selling its performance polymers division to Morgan Grenfell Private Equity for SFr1.845 billion ($1.17 billion).

(AP) — Ciba Specialty Chemicals said on Tuesday it is selling its performance polymers division to Morgan Grenfell Private Equity for SFr1.845 billion ($1.17 billion).

Ciba said it will use the money from the sale “to repay debt and for corporate development purposes.” The deal should be completed in the first quarter of 2000, it added.

The sale “underscores Ciba’s strategy to focus its portfolio on specialty chemicals rather than specialty materials,” chief executive Rolf A. Meyer said in a statement.

The polymers division, which has struggled under pricing competition, made SFr62 million ($39 million) in operating income on SFr846 million ($535 million) in sales in the first half, the company said.

In August, Ciba reported first-half net group profit of SFr121 million ($79.6 million), a fall of 53 percent on the same period last year.

The performance polymers business will remain headquartered in Basel after the sale, Ciba said. It employs more than 3,100 people worldwide.

Karl-Gerhard Seifert, head of MGPE’s German private equity team, will be the chairman of the independent business.