AGC Acquires Majority Stake in Vinythai

Thursday 23 February 2017 09:15
AGC Asahi Glass (AGC) has completed the acquisition of a 58.77% equity stake in Vinythai Public Company Limited, a competitive chlor-alkali player in Southeast Asia and Thailand's second largest manufacturer of PVC resins. The cost of acquisition was 10,448 million baht.

Becoming a major shareholder of Vinythai Plc., the AGC Group, with AGC at its core, will drive business growth both in the country and in Southeast Asia. With its production bases in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, the AGC Group is now the largest supplier of chlor-alkali products in Southeast Asia, operating integrated production facilities from caustic soda and chlorine to PVC. The Group's production capacity of each product in the region can be disclosed accordingly: PVC will be 980Kmt a year; caustic soda will be more than 1,400Kmt a year; and, VCM will be over 1,200Kmt a year.

Both PVC and caustic soda markets in Southeast Asia are expected to grow by around 5% per year, thanks to an increase in demand driven by the region's economic development. Besides chlor-alkali products, 100% bio-based epichlorohydrin or Epicerol® is an emerging biochemical product which enhances business value in terms of sustainability. The production capacity is 100 Kmt a year.

The AGC Group's management policy "AGC plus" has been implemented since 2015 in order to drive sustainable business growth. The Group's mid-term target for 2017 is to achieve ¥100 billion or around 33.33 billion baht of operating profit by taking measures timely and successfully.