Versalis, will Eni with Novamont return to the ancient Gardinian?
Eni, through Versalis, is close to acquiring Novamont, an Italian green chemical company. So, thirty years after his death, is Raul Gardini's intuition realized?
Eni is close to acquiring the entirety of Novamont, an Italian chemical company (the registered office is in Novara, production in Terni) specialized in bioplastics. The operation has an estimated value of 500 million euros and should be completed within a few weeks.
THE SHAREHOLDERS OF NOVAMONT
Eni already owns a 36 percent stake in Novamont through Versalis, a subsidiary that deals with petrochemicals and chemistry from renewable sources. It will acquire the remaining 64 percent from Mater-Bi, in turn held by the investment management companies Investitori Associati (Italian) and NB Renaissance (Italian-Luxembourg, born from an offshoot of Intesa Sanpaolo and one of Neuberger Berman ).
Minority shareholders include CEO Catia Bastioli and the Lunelli family, which owns the Cantine Ferrari sparkling wine company.
ALL THE MOVES OF VERSALIS
Versalis entered Novamont in January 2012 with a 15% stake. Almost at the same time, an equal joint venture was set up between Versalis and Novamont, called Matrìca, based in Porto Torres (where one of the most important Italian petrochemical industry poles is located) and specialized in chemical products from vegetable raw materials.
In 2013, through a capital increase of 41 million, Versalis increased its stake in Novamont to 25%. In March 2022, it increased it further, from 25 to 35 percent.
ALL ABOUT NOVAMONT
Novamont was founded in 1990 within the chemical group Montecatini Edison (or Montedison : it is the ancestor of the current Edison) with the aim of marketing the chemical products of Fertec – Ferruzzi Research and Technology, such as biodegradable bags, a novelty at the time . In 1991, the Mater-Bi bioplastic brand was born.
In 1996, with the crisis of the Montedison group, Novamont was bought by Banca Commerciale Italiana (later Banca Intesa, and after that Intesa Sanpaolo), by the Swiss bank UBS and by Investitori Associati.
At the end of 2021 Novamont reported a turnover of 414 million euros, 650 employees and approximately 1400 patents and patent applications.
RAUL GARDINI'S INTUITION
Through Versalis, and shortly also through Novamont, Eni intends to be a leading company in the so-called "chemistry from renewable sources", which uses vegetable biomass as an alternative to the more polluting hydrocarbons, for the production of chemical products.
As told by Il Sole 24 Ore , the Italian "green chemistry" industry was born in part from an intuition of Raul Gardini, son-in-law of Serafino Ferruzzi, founder of the homonymous agro-food group which in the 1980s became the majority shareholder of Montedison.
At the end of the 1980s, Gardini had the idea of exploiting the then large European surplus of cereals to produce ethanol and bioplastics, and at the same time starting large-scale cultivation of soybeans, at the time almost unknown in Italy and potentially useful as a raw material for chemistry. Through Italiana Olii e Risi, a company of the Ferruzzi group, in 1987 Italy produced 1.2 million tons of soybeans (450,000 cultivated hectares: in 1980 there were just 125), becoming the first producer in Europe and the fifth in the world.
CLOSING THE CIRCLE
Gardini's thought – he writes in a comment by Roberto Iotti of the Sole 24 Ore – was that agriculture “could become agro-industry”. However, his project for soy ethanol clashed with Eni's line, at the time chaired by Franco Reviglio, which instead promoted the use of methyl-t-butyl ether (or MTBE), a synthetic compound derived from methanol and used as an additive in gasoline.
Almost thirty years after his death, the processes of decarbonisation and energy transition seem to have proved Gardini right.
– Read also: What will Eni and the American Commonwealth do for nuclear fusion
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/eni-novamont-chimica-verde/ on Thu, 06 Apr 2023 13:03:09 +0000.