Category Archives: Company News

Interview with Elevance Renewable Sciences. Outlining their involvement in the surfactant value chain.

“In recent years, demand for these lauric oils has increased markedly and there has been substantial volatility in pricing, contributing in part to a re-arrangement and re-structuring of the oleochemicals and surfactants industries, which is still continuing,”

ICIS Conferences and the Fecc (European Association of Chemical Distributors) today announced a media partnership around the series of ICIS Surfactant conferences, co-produced with Neil A Burns LLC.

The conferences are held globally in North America, Europe and Asia, with plans to expand to South America and Middle East. The next event as part of this series is the 1st ICIS European Surfactant Conference to be held in Budapest, September 13th and 14th. The CEO of Brenntag AG, Steve Holland, will speak at the conference. Further information and registration is available at www.icis.com/europeansurfactants

Review and Outlook on the world of surfactants and oleochemicals as noted by Neil A Burns LLC

Neil A Burns role in P2 Science is discussed. The 2012 calendar for P2 Science, a new surfactant company, is featured.

ELM STREET VENTURES OF NEW HAVEN, CT HAS PROVIDED FINANCING FOR THE FORMATION OF P2 SCIENCE, INC., A SURFACTANT COMPANY, UTILISING TECHNOLOGY LICENSED FROM YALE UNIVERSITY.

Biomaterials Company, Blue Marble presents at the ACS, CM&E Lunch

Neil A Burns LLC is co-producing surfactant conferences with ICIS Conferences, a subsidiary of Reed Business Information of the UK.

Neil A Burns LLC continues to invest in the specialty chemicals sector and provide advisory services to a limited client set in the oleochemicals and surfactants industries.

Notes from M&A East, October 12 & 13, 2010 Spent a couple of days at the M&A East conference, organized by ACG of Philadelphia.     Attendance was good this year, at around 1,400. Overall the mood was positive and deal activity, by anecdote, seemed to be much stronger than this time a year ago. Tuesday kicked off with a session on globalization and outsourcing, which featured extensive discussion of China (see also previous post on Montreux). The conference’s first major speaker A. G. Lafley, recently retired from P&G, followed with a fascinating description of the process by which he and Jim Kilts negotiated the sale of Gillette to P&G in a $57Bn announced January 2005. Lafley now works as an operating advisor with Clayton Dubilier and Rice, PE firm. Wednesday’s sessions and the PE marketplace were an extremely rich networking environment. Some key takeaways included a steady recovery in debt financing availability and terms although no longer would senior lenders go to the 5 – 6 X EBITDA excesses of a couple of years ago. In addition, it seems like a 40%  equity standard has emerged for PE sponsors – at least as the first ask from senior lenders. A panel…

Welcome to our blog and the newly relaunched website for Neil A. Burns LLC. I hope you will check in periodically to share your thoughts with us in response to our postings. When is the best time to sell or buy a business? The Simple Answer: The best time to sell is at the peak of the market and the best time to buy is at the trough. Good luck in calling either of those, however. There are always small minorities of sellers and buyers who, by luck alone, manage to do just that and usually, as your Mom might have said, “someone ends up crying”! For the majority, there are a number of other considerations that it helps to review, especially as they relate to the rebounding chemicals M&A market that we are experiencing today. M&A on the Rebound: Today’s M&A market in chemicals is on the rebound from what was clearly a trough in 2009 in terms of volume and valuations. This trough followed an equally clear peak in 2007 – 8. It is not meaningful to analyze the transactions at either the 2008 peak or 2009 trough as they do not represent what all participants in the…