Japan’s Tokai Carbon is to acquire Sid Richardson Carbon Ltd. (SRC) and its two affiliated companies, with the closing expected by early September 2018. The acquisition price of 34 billion yen will be funded by loans, said Tokai.
Tokai says this acquisition represents a strategic investment that is part of its growth strategy under the Mid-Term Management Plan T-2018 and is especially important for it to establish a global production and sales system by advancing into the carbon black business in non-Asian regions.
Founded in 1993, SRC is headquartered in Fort Worth (Texas) and has manufacturing locations with the following capacities in: Borger (Texas) 170 kilotonnes/year; Big Spring (Texas) 115 kilotonnes/year; Addis (Louisiana) 155 kilotonnes/year with research laboratories in Fort Worth (Texas) and sales office in Akron (Ohio).
For the year ended December 2017 its sales were US$311.9 million while for the year ending December 2018 it has projected sales of US$386.6 million.
As the leading supplier in the US, SRC’s three plants in North America are centered around leading tyre manufacturers such as Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear and Continental.
The US market is growing with many tyre manufacturers announcing capital spending plans and the 5-year growth rate (forecast) is around 3% per year, says Tokai. In practice, it is also difficult to build new carbon black plants in the US; hence Tokai’s expansion through the investment.