Management and unions at the Irish Crown Paints manufacturing plant will meet next week to discuss the fallout from Akzo Nobel's acquisition of ICI.
The EU competition watchdog has given the green light to Dutch multinational Akzo to buy British-owned ICI for €8 billion, but has ordered it to sell the Crown Paints business as a condition.
Akzo is the world's biggest paint manufacturer. It employs more than 50 people in a Crown Paints plant on Dublin's northside. ICI owns the Dulux paint manufacturing plant in Cork.
A Siptu official told The Irish Times last night that the union is due to meet local management early next week to discuss the ramifications of the sale for the plant and its workers.
Sales of Akzo's household paints topped €200 million in Ireland and Britain last year.
Akzo will shed "essentially all" its UK and Irish decorative coatings factories and distribution, plus assets in Belgium, to win clearance of the purchase, the European Commission said in a statement yesterday.
The sale "of a small number of assets" is in line with expectations, Paul Satchell, chemicals stock analyst at ING Groep NV, said in a statement.
Akzo is shedding businesses with sales of €300 million last year, the company said in a statement. The rest of ICI will boost Akzo's revenue by one-half to €15 billion. The companies plan to complete the purchase in January after court approvals, Akzo said.
The Dutch company expects to generate €280 million in savings from the takeover. The divestments will "allow alternative sources of supply for customers to be established", the commission said. - (Additional reporting: Bloomberg)
