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SDK Acquires ILAG Coatings

May 28, 2019

CHICAGO---Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), a Japanese conglomerate with $10B in sales and parent company of Chicago-based GMM Nonstick Coatings, announces it has acquired all shares of the ILAG Group (ILAG), a specialty non-stick coating chemicals manufacturing company headquartered in Zurich Switzerland, and concluded a stock purchase agreement with Helvetica Capital, the owner of ILAG.

Non-stick coating chemicals are used on consumer goods such as cookware, bakeware, and home electrical appliances, and also on industrial goods including automotive parts and other industrial equipment. The global market for non-stick coating chemicals is USD 1.2 billion a year.

ILAG supplies its non-stick coatings in both the field of consumer goods and industrial goods. Its major customers are many of the leading cookware manufacturing companies and automotive manufacturers in Europe and the World. ILAG operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit in Switzerland, serving its customers in over 50 countries. ILAG also has a facility in China supplying highly engineered coatings to local cookware manufacturing companies that are specified by the major cookware brand owners and retailers in the European markets.

The acquisition of ILAG follows SDK’s recent purchase of GMM Nonstick Coatings (GMM), a Chicago-based manufacturer of non-stick coatings that is one of the major players in the United States market. GMM and ILAG are highly synergistic, and will operate as sister companies under a newly formed coatings business unit.

GMM Nonstick Coatings CEO Ravin Gandhi will lead GMM, and ILAG CEO Hans-Georg Geisel will lead ILAG, while working together to increase operating efficiencies and technology transfers within the shared business unit. According to Ravin Gandhi, GMM CEO “I am obsessed by serving our customers better and faster. GMM and ILAG clients will benefit tremendously as we operate at a greater global scale. This deal makes all the sense in the world.”

SDK expects to continue to invest in large strategic coatings deals in an effort to build the leading company in the global nonstick coatings industry.

For more information, please email [email protected] .