Business and strategy

The LANXESS Group is a globally operating chemicals enterprise with a portfolio ranging from basic, specialty and fine chemicals to polymers. The partly low margin level has made it essential to evolve lean, uncomplicated structures, and to systematically optimize plants and processes.

To raise profitability to the level typical of other companies in the industry, LANXESS has adopted a strategic package with four phases: performance improvements, targeted restructuring, portfolio adjustments and acquisitions. In the past fiscal year, we implemented measures in all four phases and acquired a company for the first time in our history as an independent enterprise. An additional aim is selective organic growth in profitable markets.  

The segments in brief

Organizationally, the LANXESS Group is divided into four segments: Performance Rubber, Engineering Plastics, Chemical Intermediates and Performance Chemicals.

The Performance Rubber segment combines all the Group’s activities in synthetic rubber production. Here LANXESS offers a broad portfolio of innovative products, many of which are international leaders. The segment comprises the Butyl Rubber, Polybutadiene Rubber and Technical Rubber Products business units, and has production sites in Dormagen, Leverkusen and Marl, Germany; Zwijndrecht, Belgium; La Wantzenau and Port Jérôme, France; Sarnia, Ontario, Canada; and Orange, Texas, United States. Its products have applications in areas ranging from tires and other automotive components to construction materials, leisure equipment, machinery and chewing gum.

LANXESS’s Engineering Plastics segment makes it one of the world’s most important suppliers of polymers. This segment’s business units are Lustran Polymers (formerly Styrenic Resins) and Semi-Crystalline Products, and its production sites are located in Dormagen, Hamm-Uentrop and Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Tarragona, Spain; Addyston, Ohio, and Bushy Park, South Carolina, in the United States; Katol, Moxi and Nandesari, India; Map Ta Phut, Thailand; and Wuxi, China. The plastics that LANXESS produces are particularly used in household appliances, the automotive industry, electrical engineering, electronics, and medical equipment.

The operations that LANXESS combines in its Chemical Intermediates segment make it one of the world’s leading suppliers of basic and fine chemicals and inorganic pigments. The business units in this segment are Basic Chemicals, Saltigo (formerly Fine Chemicals) and Inorganic Pigments, and its production sites are in Brunsbuettel, Dormagen, Leverkusen and Krefeld- Uerdingen, Germany; Branston, Staffordshire, United Kingdom; Vilassar de Mar, Spain; Baytown, Texas, and Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, in the United States; Porto Feliz, Brazil; Shanghai, China; and Sydney, Australia. These products are used in such diverse sectors as agrochemicals, construction, dyes and pharmaceuticals.

The Performance Chemicals segment embraces the Group’s application-oriented specialty chemicals operations. The business units in this segment are Material Protection Products, Functional Chemicals, Leather, Rhein Chemie, Rubber Chemicals and Ion Exchange Resins. It has numerous production sites: in Mannheim, Leverkusen, Krefeld-Uerdingen, Dormagen, Brunsbuettel and Bitterfeld, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Filago, Italy; Merebank, Newcastle, Isithebe and Rustenburg, South Africa; Birmingham, New Jersey, Bushy Park, South Carolina, and Chardon, Ohio in the United States; Lerma, Mexico; Zárate, Argentina; Wuxi, Weifang, Tongling and Qingdao, China; Thane and Madurai, India; and Toyohashi, Japan. Its varied products are used in disinfectants, dyes, wood preservatives, the food and beverage industry, water treatment, the leather industry, and more.  

Organization

LANXESS AG functions largely as a management holding company. Each business unit has global responsibility for its own operations. They are complemented by group functions with international responsibility for providing services.

LANXESS Deutschland GmbH is a wholly owned subsidiary of LANXESS AG, and in turn controls the other subsidiaries and affiliates both in Germany and elsewhere.