Three major trends are prevailing in the fine chemicals industry at present, namely a new wave of intense merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, globalisation and - on the demand side - the accelerating restructuring of the major customer base, the Pharmaceuticals industry. All three are covered in my new book.1 This article focuses on the first two.rnMergers & acquisitionsrnIn the history of the fine chemicals industry, there have been two periods of intense M&A activities: the first around the turn of the century and the second right now. The first coincided with the most rewarding years the industry had enjoyed since its emergence in the 1970s.rnTable 1 shows a selection of the important transactions that took place then. In all of these, the reason for the acquisition was that the buyers, who were all large speciality chemical companies located in the US or Europe, wanted to improve their portfolios by adding fine chemicals businesses. During that period of 'irrational exuberance', fine chemicals were deemed to offer better profit and growth prospects than their traditional activities.
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