PPG plans to exit glass business by end of year
The company founded as Pittsburgh Plate Glass more than a century ago plans to exit the glass business for good by the end of the year.
PPG, which now generates more than 90 percent of its sales from paints and coatings, on Friday said it has a deal to sell its remaining fiberglass business to Nippon Electric Glass Co. for $545 million.
The unit to be sold to the Japanese glassmaker operates production facilities in Chester, S.C.; Lexington, N.C.; and Shelby, N.C.; and administrative and research centers in Harmar, and Shelby, N.C.
Fiberglass is reinforced plastic used in electronic circuit boards and other consumer and industrial applications.
The operation being sold employs about 1,000 people and generated revenues of about $350 million last year.
The sale — expected to close by the end of the year — essentially marks the completion of PPG’s effort over nearly two decades to shed its old-line manufacturing businesses, including glass and chemicals, while it focused on becoming one of the biggest coatings makers in the world.
Of nearly $15 billion in revenues that PPG generated in 2016, glass sales accounted for 3 percent. The rest were industrial and performance coatings, including its brand-name house paints like Glidden, Olympic and Pittsburgh Paints.
PPG started making glass in the 1880s at the Creighton plant in East Deer along the Allegheny River. It hasn’t had full ownership in that facility since 2008, when it sold a majority of its automotive glass business to private equity firm Kohlberg & Co. and the business was renamed Pittsburgh Glass Works. Last year, it sold the 40 percent stake in PGW that it still held and the business is now fully owned by Mexican glassmaker Vitro S.A.B. de C.V.
Vitro last year also acquired PPG’s flat glass business, which makes residential and commercial windows.
Also last year, Nippon Electric bought PPG’s European fiberglass assets and PPG divested its share in two Asian fiberglass joint ventures.
Commenting on the sale of the U.S. fiberglass operations to Nippon, Michael McGarry, PPG’s chairman and chief executive, said, “We are pleased that these operations will become part of [Nippon Electric Glass], a company that is focused on fiberglass as a core business.
“This transaction … is the final action in our disciplined multiyear strategy to divest non-core businesses. Going forward, we will continue to focus on growing our paints, coatings and specialty materials businesses.”
PPG is currently trying to buy AkzoNobel, a large Dutch paints maker that has rebuffed three offers by PPG.
Shares in PPG rose 33 cents to $107.24.