Saint-Gobain plans to buy Specialty Film unit from Bekaert

Saint-Gobain disclosed its plans to acquire the Solar Gard Specialty Films unit from Bekaert, which will be housed under Saint-Gobain’s Performance Plastics division. The agreement, which did not expose the price of the purchase, includes production facilities in San Diego, California, Zulte, Belgium and Suzhou, China, as well as operations under development in China and all global sales and service centers.

Bekaert originally purchased the Specialty Films business in 2001, but found that technological collaborations have been limited over the 10-year period. The purchase is contingent to customary closing conditions, with both companies expecting the deal to be finalized throughout the rest of this year. Conditional on final determination of transaction costs and other expenses, Bekaert anticipates the deal to bring it a capital gain of nearly €10 million and reduce the company’s consolidated net debt to around €80 million.