In mid-January, Albemarle Corp. completed the $6.2 billion acquisition of New Jersey-based Rockwood Holdings Inc., one of the largest lithium producers in the world. Though the deal made headlines in financial and trade publications, it generated scant notice locally, where Albemarle is headquartered.
A Business Report feature from the current issue says perhaps that’s because Albemarle won’t be producing or processing any lithium at its facility in north Baton Rouge, so as a practical matter the Rockwood deal won’t have much material effect on the company’s workforce here of some 650 employees or on the local economy.
Still, the acquisition is significant, to say nothing of interesting, for the company itself, which is the only Fortune 1000 company headquartered in Baton Rouge and one of just a handful in the entire state. By acquiring Rockwood, Albemarle increases the size of its operations by more than 60% percent and positions itself as a major player in the international market for lithium, the key ingredient in the lithium-ion battery—the most commercially dominant energy storage technology on the planet.
“It’s a big deal in the specialty chemical space,” says Albemarle CEO Luke Kissam. “We think it sets us up as the premier specialty chemical company in that space.”
Albemarle will grow substantially with the Rockwood acquisition. The deal was one of the largest takeovers of a diversified chemicals company ever, and in 2015 revenues are expected to approach as much as $4 billion. Most of those revenues will be generated by Albemarle’s newly reorganized performance chemicals business unit, which includes both bromine—a business Albemarle was in before the acquisition—and lithium, the business it’s investing in now.
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