Lo­cal con­glom­er­ate, ANSA McAL, yes­ter­day an­nounced the ac­qui­si­tion of the US-based chlor-al­ka­li pro­duc­er Bleachtech LLC via its US sub­sidiary ANSA Chem­i­cals US LLC, for a pur­chase price of US$327 mil­lion.

In a news re­lease, the group de­scribed the ac­qui­si­tion as the largest its 143-year his­to­ry.

Bleachtech, which is based in Cleve­land, Ohio, op­er­ates two chlor-al­ka­li plants in Seville, Ohio and Pe­ters­burg, Vir­ginia that pro­duce sodi­um hypochlo­rite (bleach), sodi­um hy­drox­ide (caus­tic so­da) and hy­drochlo­ric acid.

The ac­qui­si­tion was large­ly fi­nanced via a term loan arranged in North Amer­i­ca by Citibank NA and is ex­pect­ed to be ma­te­ri­al­ly ac­cre­tive to ANSA McAL’s earn­ings in the first full year of op­er­a­tions in 2025, the group said.

“This busi­ness will al­so strength­en the group’s fi­nan­cial re­silience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty by pro­vid­ing en­hanced for­eign cur­ren­cy in­flows,” said ANSA McAL.

The group, via its sub­sidiary ANSA McAL Chem­i­cals, is the lead­ing chlor-al­ka­li pro­duc­er in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, serv­ing the wa­ter treat­ment needs of the Cari­com re­gion for over 35 years.

The group said the ac­qui­si­tion builds on its po­si­tion as a lead­ing play­er in the Caribbean chem­i­cal in­dus­try and fa­cil­i­tates the group’s hemi­spher­ic growth plans via mar­ket ex­pan­sion in­to the North Amer­i­can chem­i­cals mar­ket.

The ac­qui­si­tion will al­low both com­pa­nies to com­bine their ex­per­tise and com­ple­men­tary strengths in safe­ly pro­duc­ing and de­liv­er­ing bulk bleach to potable wa­ter treat­ment plants, waste­water treat­ment plants and com­pa­nies that sup­ply house­hold con­sumers.

“Bleachtech is a sig­nif­i­cant ad­di­tion to our over­all busi­ness port­fo­lio. We in­tend for this to grow over time, so we will be cre­at­ing new ca­reer op­por­tu­ni­ties al­most im­me­di­ate­ly as we en­hance our ser­vice to our loy­al and new cus­tomers across the Unit­ed States,” said ANSA McAL group CEO, An­tho­ny Sab­ga III, in the news re­lease.

“My pri­or­i­ty over the next few months will be to meet with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to share our growth plans and com­mit­ment to work­ing with Bleachtech’s tal­ent­ed team. The pu­rifi­ca­tion and dis­in­fec­tion end use of Bleachtech’s prod­ucts is very much in line with our group’s en­vi­ron­men­tal com­mit­ments, which form part of our broad­er, well doc­u­ment­ed, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Busi­ness Pri­or­i­ties. This in­vest­ment re­in­forces our com­mit­ment to the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal (SDG 6) to en­sure the avail­abil­i­ty, and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of wa­ter and san­i­ta­tion for all,” Sab­ga said.

Andy Ma­hadeo, ANSA McAL’s sec­tor head—chem­i­cals, said, “We are ex­cit­ed about this sig­nif­i­cant ac­qui­si­tion which es­tab­lish­es our op­er­a­tional and mar­ket foot­print in the Amer­i­c­as. We in­tend to in­vest in the busi­ness and will be ac­tive­ly work­ing with the ex­pe­ri­enced Bleachtech team to craft the path for­ward. Our fo­cus now re­mains the con­tin­ued safe op­er­a­tions of the plants while we ex­plore ways to build out de­mand to utilise spare plant ca­pac­i­ty.”

For­mer own­er of Bleachtech, Richard Im­mer­man, said, “We are ex­cit­ed that Bleachtech is join­ing the ANSA McAL group. I have been im­pressed with the care, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and rigour ANSA McAL brought to this process. Their in­ten­tion to in­vest and grow this busi­ness is good news for all of us who helped build, and work for, Bleachtech, as well as for our sup­pli­ers and cus­tomers.

“ANSA McAL has shown a will­ing­ness to lis­ten and en­gage both in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly, which speaks vol­umes about their com­mit­ment to lo­cal pri­or­i­ties, as well as the com­mu­ni­ties’ needs go­ing for­ward.”

In his clos­ing re­marks, An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III, said; “I would like to thank Richard Im­mer­man and Tim­o­thy Maeg­ly, for­mer own­ers of Bleachtech and their team for the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and rigour, demon­strat­ed over the last few months. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to build up­on their lega­cy and in­vest­ing in the Bleachtech peo­ple as the dri­ving force of this busi­ness.”