Mergers & Acquisitions

We continue to optimize our investment portfolio with good-fit acquisitions, flotations and business divestments

PCC SE is a growth-led investor with a stable and future-aligned portfolio of assets and affiliates undergoing a continuous process of optimization. With a great track record in acquisitions and investment projects management, we are constantly opening up new markets and adding impetus in our drive for further revenue growth and profitability. Targeted flotations strengthen our capital base while well conceived business divestments release funds for the expansion of core activities.

The M&A Strategy of PCC SE: Strengths and Opportunities

  • Competence-related investments based on a widely diversified portfolio in the chemicals and logistics sectors

  • Fundamental expertise in the successful development of businesses since 1993

  • Excellent knowledge of international growth markets, particularly the manufacturing and sales markets of Eastern Europe

  • Focus on lucrative, less competitive sub-markets and market niches

  • Increasing synergies between individual divisions and new business units; focus on extending our value chain

  • Sale of existing and newly developed products in ever more and increasingly diversified segments

The management of portfolio assets and affiliates and examination of further acquisitions for the purpose of competence-related diversification into new market segments remains at the heart of our Group policy. The underlying objective over the long term is to extend our basis for sustainable growth and to continuously increase enterprise value. Above all, our focus is on positioning ourselves in less competitive sub-markets and market niches.

Highlights of PCC’s M&A track record

2000 – 2008:
Acquisition of shares in Polish freight companies and the pooling of these activities within the PCC Logistics (Poland) subgroup which, by 2009, had become the largest private rail cargo transport company in the country.

2002 – 2010:
PCC successively purchases shares in a major Polish chemicals producer destined to become PCC Rokita SA. The full acquisition of this, the biggest company in the PCC Group, was completed in 2010.

2006:
PCC goes overseas. Through the acquisition of a business unit of Rütgers Organics Corporation, PCC Chemax, Inc. is established in Piedmont (South Carolina, USA). Today, this surfactants manufacturer is part of PCC Exol SA.

2009:
Acquisition of the company known today as PCC Silicium S.A. in Zagórze (Poland) which operates a quartzite quarry. It constitutes the raw material base for the silicon metal production plant which we commissioned in 2018.

2015 – 2018:
PCC Rokita SA establishes a joint venture with the Thai polyols and PU manufacturer IRPC Polyol Company Ltd. and by 2018 acquires a total of 50% of the shares in the joint venture partner.

Two PCC Group companies are quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW): PCC Rokita SA and PCC Exol SA. The market value of the shares held by PCC SE including its subsidiaries in these affiliates totaled € 443.7 million as of December 31, 2022. Their joint market capitalization per reporting date amounted to € 522.7 million.

PCC SE remains the main strategic investor in all its listed subsidiaries. A transparent market price, a strengthened equity base and the possibility of also carrying out investments in the future on the back of further equity-raising activities are the drivers of PCC’s stock market flotation policy.

2012:
Partial flotation of PCC Exol SA on the Warsaw Stock Exchange
Issuance proceeds: around €2,5 million
PCC SE shareholding: around 87%

2014:
Partial flotation of PCC Rokita SA on the Warsaw Stock Exchange
Issuance proceeds: around €11 million
Simultaneous capital increase: around €13 million
PCC SE shareholding: around 84%

Business divestments are a further aspect of our active investment portfolio management approach. PCC SE divests operations where disposal offers attractive gains and the funds that are released can be invested in the expansion of other core activities. The holding company will also dispose of portfolio entities where these are unable to generate satisfactory returns or no longer offer attractive development potential.

Highlights of PCC’s M&A track record

2008:
Sale of Rokita-Agro, Brzeg Dolny (Poland), to the Israeli agrochemicals producer Makhteshim Agan Industries.

2009:
Sale of the subgroup PCC Logistics (Poland) to Deutsche Bahn AG. This divestment represents the greatest success to date of PCC’s policy of active investment portfolio management.

2010:
Sale of the energy supplier PCC Energie GmbH, Duisburg (Germany), to the Spanish company Nexus Energía S.A..

2015:
Sale of the telecommunication and data center service provider 3Services Factory S.A., Katowice (Poland) to an international investment fund.

Within the Projects business unit of the holding company PCC SE, we manage important future-aligned undertakings at the planning, financing and construction phase before transferring them to our operational Group segments. This initial development approach enables us to reduce the burden of project management on the segments concerned, while at the same time leveraging experience gained at the Group level from two decades of planning and project stewardship in the development of new fields of activity. In this way, we have, for example, built a production facility for silicon metal in Iceland.

Highlights of PCC’s project financing

2005:
Start of PCC’s successful involvement in the power generation segment involving renewable energies through the establishment of a joint venture, PCC DEG Renewables GmbH, in partnership with the KfW subsidiary DEG mbH. Initial finance provision: €8 million. Find out more about our investments in the Energy
Segment >>

2012 -2018:
PCC SE and its Russian partner JSC Shchekinoazot establish the joint venture OOO DME Aerosol, thus laying the basis for a bank-financed project for the manufacture of ultra-pure dimethyl ether (DME). Project volume: €20 million. Find out more about our DME production in Russia >>

2012 – 2018:
After several years of negotiations, PCC SE secures the financing package for the Iceland project involving the construction of an ultra-modern silicon metal production plant. The investment volume totalling around US$300 million (approx. €265 million) is largely covered by a loan from KfW IPEX-Bank, with Icelandic pension funds also among the initial investors. Plant construction began in 2015 and commissioning took place in 2018. The plant, whose production is exclusively powered with electricity from renewable energies, is operated by the Icelandic subsidiary PCC BakkiSilicon hf. Find out more about our silicon metal production in Iceland >>

Since 2017:
PCC SE plans to set up a production facility for oxyalkylates (non-ionic surfactants and polyether polyols) in Malaysia in a 50/50 joint venture with one of the leading integrated chemical players in Southeast Asia, PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (PCG). For this purpose, in 2017 the project company PCC-OM was established in Malaysia, in which PCG acquired a 50% stake in 2020. The planned facilities are located at PCG’s petrochemical complex in Kertih in the Malaysian province of Terengganu. Find out more about our planned project in Malaysia >>