Rockwood Specialties Group Inc.'s Rockwood Pigments (UK) Ltd. subsidiary completed the acquisition of the Pigments and Dispersions business of Johnson Matthey plc for approximately $50 million.
The Sherwin-Williams Co. completed the acquisitions of Duron Inc. and Paint Sundry Brands Corp. in separate transactions valued at approximately $625 million, including the assumption of certain financial obligations.
ICI Paints said it has donated nearly 40,000 gallons of paint to Habitat for Humanity International in the first two years of an ongoing program established to assist the nonprofit organization.
California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo announced that Dunn-Edwards Corp. and company owner Ken Edwards are contributing $600,000 to the College of Science and Mathematics' Western Coatings Technology Center at the university.
The Cleveland Society for Coatings Technology announced preliminary plans for the 48th annual Technical Symposium of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Societies for Coatings Technology, scheduled for May 2005.
Lord Corp. has acquired L/T Technologies L.L.C., a joint-venture business of Lord Corp. and Treffert GmbH and Co. KG and a manufacturer of acrylic UV-cure and waterborne coatings for wood products. L/T Technologies is based in Cary, NC, near Lord Corp.'s headquarters. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
Testimony began last week in a $1.4 billion asbestos trial in Angleton, TX, in which Kelly-Moore Paint Co. is seeking a verdict against Union Carbide Corp., now a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co. Kelly-Moore is the target of thousands of asbestos claims filed by individuals who say they were harmed by asbestos-containing products formerly made by the San Carlos, CA, coatings manufacturer and retailer.
The fortunes of major coatings manufacturers continued to improve in the second quarter, building on the momentum of late 2003 and the first quarter of 2004.
DSM Desotech Inc. announced the construction of a manufacturing facility in China to produce UV-cure materials for the fiber-optic cable market. The manufacturing operation, DSM Desotech Specialty Chemicals (Shanghai) Ltd., is scheduled to begin operation late this year, the company said.