Sikkens - History - Nobel Industries 1984-1993

Nobel Industries 1984-1993

Both Bofors and KemaNobel have historic ties to Alfred Nobel, the great 19th century Swedish inventor who was the first to discover a way to detonate the flammable liquid nitroglycerin.

• 1984 Bofors acquires the majority shareholding in KemaNobel
• 1985 Bofors integrates the entire KemaNobel group and changes its name to Nobel Industries.

Probel becomes Nobel Biotech within KemaNobel Specialty Chemicals.

KenoGard Specialty Chemicals became KeNobel.

• 1986 divests business civil explosives, Nitro Nobel.
• 1986 acquires Swedish paper and pulp group Eka AB, which becomes a business area, Eka Nobel.

As a result Eka becomes a major sodium chlorate producer and expanded its operations to North America.

• 1988 acquires Berol Kemi, Swedish surface chemistry group, from Procordia

and merges it with KeNobel to form a new business area, Berol Nobel.

• 1988 merge with the two Swedish holding companies Investment AB Asken and Investment AB D. Carnegie.

Eka Nobel

• 1990 Eka Nobel acquires Alby Klorat and Stora Kemi from Swedish forest group Stora Kopparberg, Albright and Wilson's paper chemicals division, starts joint venture in India viz. Arjun Chemicals and makes heavy investments in new plants. Eka runs production in 14 countries around the world. Lignox, a patented, hydrogen peroxide bleaching process is introduced.
• 1991 Eka's j.v in India Arjun Chemicals started the production with fortified rosin soaps intended for the application paper industry.
• 1991 Eka Nobel's starts hydrogen peroxide production in Venezuela.

Casco Nobel

• 1987 acquires the majority shareholding in Sadolin & Holmblad, a Danish paints and adhesives group, from ATP, Hafnia, Norsk Hydro, and the Foss and Sadolin families.

Together with Casco and Nordsjo forms the business area, Casco Nobel.

• 1988 Casco Nobel acquires Parteks adhesives and joint compound operations in Finland and Raison Tehtaats adhesives operations in Finland, and the adhesives company Arkol in Italy.
• 1989 acquires Swedish inks group G-man from Swedish forest group Stora Kopparberg and merges it with Sadolin Printing Inks to Casco Nobel Inks, later Akzo Nobel Inks.
• 1990 acquires Crown Berger, English paints group, which became part of Casco Nobel.
• 1991 Casco Nobel begins cooperation with Martinswerk GmbH regarding production of Lacquer additive Pergopak at Stockvik.

Other business areas

• 1990 Pharos acquires the American electronics group Spectra-Physics, and change name to Spectra-Physics.
• 1991 Nobel Industries and Sadolin & Holmblad sells
  • Kemisk Værk Køge herbicides activities, KVK Agro Chemicals, to Sandoz,
  • the chemical-technical activities, KVK Chemical-Technical, to Castrol,
  • the only Nordic producer of color and textile pigments Kemisk Værk Køge of Denmark to Sun Chemical of USA, part of DaiNippon Inks Japan.
• 1991 forms a 50/50% joint venture together with FFV, named Swedish Ordnance, Bofors's electronics activities are gathered in NobelTech.
• 1992 sells Nobel Consumer Goods business area - mainly Barnängen Tekniska Fabrik, Liljeholms, Sterisol, and Vademecum - to the German group Henkel.
• 1992 sells its 50% shareholding in Swedish Ordnance to joint venture partner FFV's new owner Celsius Industries.
• 1993 sells NobelTech to Celsius Industries and Nobel Chemicals to.

• 1994 merges with AKZO, forming Akzo Nobel. Nobel Industries contributes to Akzo Nobel with the business areas
  • paints and adhesives (Casco Nobel),
  • bleaching and paper chemicals (Eka Nobel),
  • surface chemistry (Berol Nobel),

Nobelpharma (Nobel Biotech) and Spectra-Physics, becomes listed on Stockholm Stock-Exchange.

The new Akzo Nobel has 20 business entities.