Harrisons & Crosfield PLC said Tuesday it agreed to buy Houston-based NL Industries Inc.’s Rheox chemicals business for $465 million in cash as part of a strategic shift and also will pay $671 million to investors.
Harrisons, formerly a diversified industrial company, said the Rheox purchase would make it a “major global supplier of additives to the coatings industry,” adding to its existing colorants and additives business. Rheox debt of about $121 million is excluded from the purchase.
London-based Harrisons joins other U.K. companies such as BTR PLC and Hanson PLC in shedding diversified assets to focus on core businesses. It also joins Imperial Chemical Industries PLC and other chemical-makers in a shift into specialty chemicals, where returns generally are higher than from commodity chemicals.
Rheox has operations in New Jersey, Missouri, Germany and elsewhere. It generated $39.3 million in 1996 operating profits on sales of $134.9 million. NL Industries is a major global maker of titanium dioxide pigments, which are widely used in paint.
