Acquisition of Solvay's polyamide 66 business
Company:DOMO Chemicals, polyamides. Interim management, 1 year.
Context:Acquisition arising from the remedy imposed by the European Commission on BASF in its takeover of Solvay's polyamide business. Sites in France, Poland and Spain.
Challenge:Secure the acquisition thesis and prepare the integration: commercial and industrial due diligence, negotiation, structuring.
Intervention:Led the due diligence and negotiation team from letter of intent to signing, with no P&L responsibility. Innovation and new-business development. Commercial integration plan.
Markets covered:Automotive and mobility, Electrical and electronics, Consumer goods, Textiles and fibres
Result:Acquisition completed, taking DOMO's revenue from around €0.9bn to €1.6bn (DOMO announcement, August 2019).
Ten-year strategic plan for an integrated Nylon 6 business
Company:DOMO Chemicals, polymerisation, compounding and engineering plastics, main assets in Leuna (Germany). Consulting, 11 months.
Challenge:Set a ten-year direction at group and business-unit level.
Intervention:Competitive diagnosis, portfolio rationalisation, integrated industrial model, growth roadmap.
Markets covered:Automotive and mobility, Electrical and electronics, Consumer goods, Textiles and fibres
Result:Ten-year strategic plan delivered, framing capital allocation decisions.
External growth in speciality materials
Company:Michelin, speciality materials division of the group. Interim management, 6 months.
Challenge:Identify acquisitions that are coherent on both strategic and industrial grounds.
Intervention:Target mapping and screening, qualification, assessment of strategic and industrial fit.
Markets covered:Construction, Adhesives and resins
Result:Qualified and prioritised target universe for the investment decision.
International distribution strategy in speciality chemicals
Company:Aceto, speciality chemicals, Europe, Asia and the United States. Consulting, 1 year.
Challenge:Build a profitable distribution business beyond the home market.
Intervention:Market entry sequencing, channel architecture and optimisation, distribution economics.
Markets covered:Healthcare and pharma, Personal care and cosmetics, Coatings and inks, Adhesives and resins
Result:Channel model and growth plan defined.
Business development for a European masterbatch group
Company:Unnox Group, colour and additive masterbatches for the plastics industry, production sites in Catalonia, Navarre and Andalusia, distribution centre in France. Consulting, 10 months.
Challenge:Develop additional volume on a variable-cost basis, with fixed costs covered by the business with converters.
Intervention:Business development with European polymer producers. Development of toll manufacturing, notably for additives and at the site in southern Spain.
Markets covered:Packaging, Agriculture
Interim general management, then sale
Company:Bosc & Izarn, family-owned grain and forage distributor (Tarn, France), around €20m revenue. Strategy consulting (6 months), then interim general management with full P&L (3 months) and M&A advisory through to the sale, over two and a half years in total.
Challenge:Run the business during a leadership vacancy, then lead its sale.
Intervention:Stabilisation, strategic positioning, valuation, buyer identification, negotiation, closing.
Markets covered:Cereals and seeds
Result:Company sold to RAGT Plateau Central, a French agricultural group.
Interim general management after a change of ownership
Company:Palmarole, distributor of polymer additives since 1982 (antioxidants, light stabilisers, nucleating and clarifying agents, antistatic agents, blowing agents), headquartered in Basel, with entities in Switzerland and France. Interim general management of the French and Swiss entities, with P&L, 5 months.
Context:Takeover by an Italian polymer additives group.
Challenge:Take charge of all operations in the period following the change of ownership.
Intervention:Took over all operations: supplier portfolio, purchasing organisation, customer service, administration, planning and sales. Led the sales teams, visited customers alongside them, represented the company at trade fairs (Fakuma, Friedrichshafen).
Markets covered:Packaging, Agriculture
Strategic repositioning of a precious metals player
Company:Soleil Metals, the Peruvian subsidiary of the OCIM Group, two integrated gold processing plants, compliant with LBMA standards. Chief Strategy Officer mandate, interim management, 5 months.
Challenge:Set a long-term strategic trajectory and an integrated business model, supported by external growth, in a sector, technology, regulatory framework, markets and value chain that were new.
Intervention:Rapid ramp-up on the sector, market analysis, competitive positioning, vertical integration, growth and M&A strategy, business model transformation.
Markets covered:Gold and precious metals
Result:Strategic roadmap and target integration model defined.
Turnaround of two global business units
Company:Clariant, polymer additives and speciality waxes, sites in Switzerland, Germany and Thailand, up to €35m EBITDA and 320 people. Vice-President, global P&L, 7 years.
Challenge:Restore a durably insufficient margin in a mature, cyclical market.
Intervention:Value-based pricing and selling, key accounts, portfolio rationalisation, S&OP, inventory and overdue receivables, capacity utilisation, several capacity investment projects.
Markets covered:Automotive and mobility, Electrical and electronics, Packaging, Construction, Agriculture, Consumer goods, Coatings and inks, Adhesives and resins, Textiles and fibres
Result:EBITDA margin from 7.5% to over 20% in three years, 5% growth at constant currency, working capital down 3 points.
Transformation of a European polymer distributor
Company:Nexeo Solutions, polymer distribution, Barcelona, twelve legal entities, €500m revenue, 200 people. Vice-President Europe, full P&L.
Challenge:A business largely centred on a commodity, polypropylene, with low profitability and a high cost base.
Decisions executed:Centralisation of all European customer services into a single multilingual customer service in Barcelona; redeployment of part of the teams and creation of a team of ten technical marketing and development engineers focused on speciality polymers with higher margins.
Markets covered:Automotive and mobility, Electrical and electronics, Packaging, Construction, Healthcare and pharma, Personal care and cosmetics, Consumer goods
Global commercial leadership of polyamide 66
Company:Solutia (now Ascend Performance Materials), revenue of around US$1bn, sales teams across four continents. Global Sales and Marketing Director, no P&L, 3 years.
Intervention:Global commercial strategy, portfolio by segment and application, mix trade-offs on margin per tonne, key-account programme with automotive OEMs.
Markets covered:Automotive and mobility, Electrical and electronics, Consumer goods
Circular economy and co-product valorisation
Company:RB Process, valorisation of rice co-products.
Intervention:Led the development: patented extraction process, development of active and functional oils and exfoliants (desquamating, moisturising, regenerating) for the cosmetics markets, industrialisation and pre-marketing.
Markets covered:Personal care and cosmetics, Circular economy