Sep 29 2004
LANXESS Corporation, the U.S. subsidiary of a newly created global company with an extensive portfolio including basic, specialty, and fine chemicals as well as polymers, announced today that it has chosen to locate its headquarters in Findlay Township, Allegheny County, outside Pittsburgh.
The decision was made in conjunction with public funding incentive agreements reached between the company, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the County of Allegheny, according to LANXESS Corporation President and CEO Randy Dearth.
LANXESS said it pledged to make Allegheny County the seat of its corporate headquarters and laboratories for its U.S. businesses, including a portion of the sales and marketing office supporting its Akron, Ohio, rubber marketing activities. The Pittsburgh headquarters will employ up to 435 persons. The company also pledged to invest approximately $10 million in Pennsylvania over the next three years.
In exchange, the Commonwealth agreed to make available to LANXESS up to $872,000 in a Pennsylvania Opportunity Grant, $554,000 in job-training assistance, and $435,000 in job creation tax credits. Allegheny County pledged a Community Development Block Grant of up to $200,000.
“We salute Governor Ed Rendell, County Executive Dan Onorato, our local legislators, and especially the taxpayers of the Allegheny County and Pennsylvania for their support in securing high-paying jobs and capital investment in this region,” Dearth said. “LANXESS is happy to call Pittsburgh home for our U.S. headquarters.”
LANXESS employees will begin moving around November 1 into a 104,000-square-foot building erected by DiCicco Development at 111 RIDC Park West Drive in RIDC West. LANXESS will occupy 91,500 square feet of the building. The move will consolidate business unit managers and corporate staff employees who have been working in multiple locations. LANXESS will keep four laboratories – paper colorants, plastic colorants, microbiology, and coatings additives – in Robinson. LANXESS also operates an iron oxide pigment blending facility in Imperial, Pa.
The capital investments pledged by LANXESS primarily will take the form of additions to its Pittsburgh-area facilities.
In the United States, LANXESS products are manufactured at 10 sites: Addyston, Chardon, and Newark OH; Birmingham and Trenton, NJ; New Martinsville, WV; Bushy Park Industrial Park and Wellford, SC; and Orange and Baytown, TX.
LANXESS Corporation was formed when the Bayer Group combined most of its chemical businesses and large segments of its polymer activities. The company began operating as a legal entity in the United States on July 1, 2004. LANXESS Corporation will be a member of the newly formed LANXESS Group. Bayer intends to divest itself of LANXESS through a spin-off, which would lead to a distribution of LANXESS shares to Bayer AG shareholders.
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