Top Companies Report Provides Comprehensive Look at Coatings Industry

Coatings World’s Top Companies Report (pg. 38) offers our readers in-depth analysis of the global coatings industry. The report is one of our most popular issues, offering our readers a comprehensive look at the top players in the paint, coatings, adhesives and sealants industry. I hope you find this report insightful and helpful in understanding the complex and diverse global coatings, adhesives and sealants markets. I welcome your feedback. If your coatings company had at least $100 million in revenue for 2014, please email so I can add it to the online version.

This year we have profiled 80 companies – down from last year’s 87. We had to remove the following six companies for not having revenue of at least $100 million in 2014: Chokwang (73), Diamond Vogel (68), NOF Metal Coatings (71), Tnemec (83), Whitford (72) and Yip’s Chemical (59). Quest Specialty Chemicals (75) was recently acquired by Valspar.

This year we did add one first-timer to the list:  Poland-based Snieka (68).

No doubt the weakening of the euro against the U.S. dollar had a significant impact on many of the European companies on the list.

There were some changes to the top five. PPG (01) nudged out AkzoNobel (02) for the number one slot. This can be attributed to the company’s acquisition of Comex, an architectural coatings company with headquarters in Mexico City, in a transaction valued at $2.3 billion. The acquisition, the second-largest in PPG’s history, added a leading architectural coatings business in Mexico to the company’s already extensive portfolio.

Charles Bunch, CEO expressed confidence that PPG will continue to grow in 2015 and beyond.

“As we look forward into 2015, we expect sales of our coatings businesses to approach 95 percent of PPG’s total sales,” Bunch said. “We are well positioned to benefit from continuing global growth due to our broad geographic reach, excellent product offering, and pipeline of new and innovative products. Additionally, we will maintain our heritage of operational excellence and cost management.”

Ton Büchner, CEO of AkzoNobel expressed measured optimism in his statement in the company’s annual report. “The beginning of the year was very much dominated by unfavorable conditions with regard to currencies, while markets did seem to recover to a certain extent,” he added. “That changed in the second half of the year when Europe again experienced a lack of growth and the recovery that everyone had hoped for didn’t materialize. At the same time, we saw some of the Asian economies and Latin America slow down. These were serious economic challenges that we needed to adapt to. In terms of financial performance, we saw the first clear proof points that our strategy is working, despite the market headwinds.”