LANXESS sets ambitious growth target

LANXESS announced today its goal to increase its leading earnings indicator by roughly 80 percent in the coming five years. The specialty chemicals company is targeting EBITDA pre exceptionals of approximately EUR 1.4 billion in 2015 and confirmed its forecast of roughly EUR 800 million EBITDA pre exceptionals in 2010. LANXESS plans to achieve its mid-term earnings target through a dual-track growth strategy of organic and external growth. Organic growth will play the more dominant role.

LANXESS’ businesses benefit from their focus on premium products serving the four megatrends of mobility, agriculture, urbanization and water. The company’s BRIC strategy and the expected growth of its leading customer industries will help each of its businesses to generate an EBITDA compound annual growth rate of at least 5 percent through 2015. The percentage of group sales in BRIC countries has more than doubled in the last five years.

LANXESS is the leader in rubber for the high-performance, environmentally friendly “green tire” market - the fastest growing segment in the tire industry, with an annual global growth rate of about 9.0 percent. As a result, the company is expanding its production capacities in Germany, USA and Brazil for neodymium polybutadiene rubber (Nd-PBR), which is essential in the production of high-performance tires.

Furthermore, it is considering building a new production plant for Nd-PBR in Asia, with a capacity of 100,000 to 150,000 metric tons per annum. A feasibility study is currently under way, and a final decision on the project will be made within the next six months.

Simultaneously, LANXESS will continue to explore external growth opportunities to strengthen the existing business portfolio. The current focus is on small to medium-sized acquisitions similar to the transaction size of past acquisitions.