Daelim Acquires US Crayton's 'Cariplex Business'... "Accelerating New Material Acquisition"

Cariplex Factory in Brazil (Photo by Daelim Industrial)

[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] Daelim Industrial is entering new industries through the acquisition of a U.S. medical materials company.

Daelim Industrial announced on the 9th that it has finalized the acquisition of Cariflex's business from Creighton in the U.S. Accordingly, Daelim Industrial has secured the core technology including Cariflex's production plant in Brazil and its research and development (R&D) center in the Netherlands. Along with this, the company has also acquired the global sales organizations, personnel, and goodwill in the U.S., Germany, Belgium, Japan, Singapore, and other countries. The total acquisition amount is $530 million (approximately 620 billion KRW).

Cariflex produces high value-added synthetic rubber and latex. These products are used as medical materials such as surgical gloves and rubber stoppers for injection devices. Surgical gloves made from natural rubber can cause allergies in both doctors and patients, but surgical gloves made from synthetic rubber do not carry this risk. Due to the safety of these synthetic rubber materials, the market is rapidly growing mainly in the U.S., and the usage share is expected to gradually increase in Europe and Asia as well. The products produced by the Cariflex division hold the number one market share in the global synthetic rubber surgical glove market, which is expected to grow at a high rate of about 8% annually.

Daelim Industrial plans to actively foster advanced new materials businesses going forward. The core technology for producing high-performance butadiene rubber secured through this acquisition was selected as one of the new growth and core technologies by the Ministry of Economy and Finance in February of this year. Daelim Industrial’s strategy is to accelerate the expansion of high value-added petrochemical businesses applicable to advanced industrial fields such as medical devices, aerospace, and functional tires by combining its independently developed technologies such as metallocene catalysts with Cariflex’s anionic catalyst-based synthetic rubber production technology.

Through this acquisition, Daelim Industrial plans to localize medical materials that have high dependence on overseas technology and imports, and to build an ecosystem for the new materials industry. To this end, the company is securing core technologies through technology development and is also considering investing in production plants domestically. A Daelim Industrial official said, "By securing domestic production bases, we expect to promote growth in the medical materials industry, which is directly linked to public safety and health, along with job creation."

Kim Sang-woo, Vice Chairman of Daelim Industrial, said, “The acquisition of Cariflex is a tangible result created by Chairman Lee Hae-wook’s strategy to focus on fostering the petrochemical energy developer business,” and added, “It is Daelim’s first step toward nurturing the advanced new materials industry.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.