The specialty generalist

摘要

Just as America's dodgy subprime mortgages were triggering the credit crunch in August last year, Hans Wijers, the boss of AkzoNobel, a European specialty chemicals company, shook hands with John McAdam, the boss of ici, to seal a takeover that had been rumbling for months. AkzoNobel's two previous bids had been rebuffed, but when Mr Wijers raised his offer price to ? billion ($16 billion), ici capitulated-spelling the end for one of Britain's most famous companies and one of the biggest names in chemicals. The combination of ici's strength in America and Asia with AkzoNobel's clout in Europe transformed a stolid regional company into a powerful global competitor, and turned AkzoNobel into the world's biggest maker of paints. Yet the architect of the merger, Mr Wijers, had no reputation as a dealmaker-indeed, he was a newcomer to senior management when he was appointed as AkzoNobel's chief executive in 2003.