Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved the Executive Committee’s proposal to update Clariant’s strategy in order to further increase value creation. The plan was developed as a consequence of the termination of the intended merger with Huntsman, which was forced by activist shareholders.

The implementation of Clariant’s existing growth strategy as well as further value creation would have been accelerated by the merger with Huntsman. It would have generated more than $3.5 billion of shareholder value through the realization of massive synergies and a promising optionality from a portfolio and capital strength perspective. Clariant’s management is fully aware that the new situation following the termination of the merger will require additional efforts to update the strategy which will now be implemented on an accelerated basis.

Therefore, the Board of Directors supports the Executive Committee’s intention to build upon Clariant’s existing strategy by defining further actions such as M&A activities, short-term portfolio management options, potential returns to shareholders, a thorough review of the cost base and the pursuit of additional growth opportunities. Clariant’s recently announced investment in the sunliquid® technology is one example of the latter.

Since Clariant’s well-proven and successful growth strategy was and is unanimously supported by the Süd-Chemie legacy shareholders, representing approximately 15% of the outstanding shares, as well as the vast majority of institutional shareholders, the company has a broad global backing for continuing its course of reaching a position in the top tier of the specialty chemicals industry. Clariant will announce and present details concerning these activities to its investors in the beginning of 2018, well before its Annual General Meeting in March.