Lubrizol bulks up its specialty offerings

Lubrizol has put forward an offer of $1.84-billion to purchase Noveon for its coatings, inks and personal care businesses. The Noveon subsidiary will have sales of about $1.64 billion, and account for half of Lubrizol's total sales of $3.26 billion. The acquisition will also boost Lubrizol's sales growth. Noveon's performance coatings business produces water-based acrylic polymers and compounds; Lubrizol makes solvent-based acrylic polymers. Noveon's consumer specialties unit produces acrylic thickeners for soaps and hair care markets, as well as bezoate preservatives, emollients, film formers, fixatives, and silicones.