The faces are tense, turned towards the scene of the municipal center of Pont-de-Claix (Isère). Wednesday, October 23, around 200 Vencorex employees are waiting for the unions to speak, two days after the deadline set to submit offers to take over the company, owned by the Thai petrochemical group PTT GC and placed in receivership for more than a month. “You probably all know this already, but there is only one offer”cowardly at the microphone Séverine Dejoux, elected to the social and economic committee (CSE) of Vencorex.
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The news is a blow, because the only offer submitted is that of the main competitor of the company specializing in isocyanates (used in paints and varnishes for the automobile, construction or electronics sectors) , the Chinese group Wanhua. The same one which, with its aggressive pricing policy allowing it to display insolent financial health, would have largely contributed to the difficulties that Vencorex has been experiencing for several years. Through a Hungarian subsidiary – the Borsodchem company – Wanhua offered to take over a single Vencorex workshop, that of tolonates, a derivative of isocyanates, and only 25 employees out of the company's 450 for a check of 1 million euros, according to an offer that The World was able to consult.
The offer is all the more unsatisfactory for the unions as a certain number of suspensive conditions are attached to it. Wanhua requests in particular to be able to recover all the patents and all intellectual property rights of Vencorex France. It also conditions the takeover on the conclusion of an agreement in principle on the purchase of two sister companies of Vencorex France, one established in Thailand and the other in the United States. “In fact, there are so many suspensive conditions that we cannot say that the offer is firm and concrete”underlines Séverine Dejoux.
“Red lines”
“It’s a disaster, a shock”alert the unions, according to which “at least seven potential buyers had been mentioned” since Vencorex was placed in receivership on September 10. Expectations were high, particularly from Arkema, which has a factory on the Jarrie chemical platform, neighboring that of Pont-de-Claix where Vencorex operates, and which sources salt from the latter for manufacture chlorine, soda and derived products.
The salt supply comes from the operation of a mine located in Hauterives, in the Drôme. The raw material is then transported by pipeline, an infrastructure that Arkema co-financed with Vencorex, in exchange for a supply of salt at a very advantageous price. The Arkema spokesperson declared at the time of Vencorex's placement in receivership that “the objective (…) [était] to ensure the continuity of the salt supply for the Jarrie site”.
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