Sealed Air To Spin Off Diversey Care

Sealed Air Corporation plans to spin-off of its Diversey Care division and the food hygiene and cleaning business within its food care division, allowing the Sealed Air business to continue as an independent public company.
 
Under the plan, Sealed Air’s shareholders would own 100% of the common stock of New Diversey following completion of the spin-off. The plan is designed to allow each of New Sealed Air and New Diversey to focus on a distinct set of strategic objectives, creating enhanced shareholder value, according to the company.
 
The transaction is expected to be completed in the second half of 2017.
 
New Diversey, which will be led by Dr. Ilham Kadri, president of Diversey Care, will be a pure-play, high-growth hygiene and cleaning solutions company. On a pro forma basis for the twelve months ended June 30, 2016, New Diversey generated $2.6 billion in sales.
 
Sealed Air Corporation announced its intent to acquire Diversey in June 2011 in a transaction valued at $4.3 billion.  At the time, Diversey, with annual net sales of $3.1 billion, was a privately-owned company, controlled by members of the Johnson family and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC.
 
Diversey grew from a division of SC Johnson. In 1999, it separated from SCJ and became a stand-alone company called Johnson Wax Professional. In 2002, it acquired DiverseyLever to become JohnsonDiversey Inc., and in 2009, along with a recapitalization deal it became Diversey, Inc.
 
Dr. Kadri, president of Diversey Care, joined Sealed Air in 2013 from Dow Chemical. She brings more than 20 years of experience through a variety of global roles in Business Leadership, Strategic Planning, Sales, Marketing, Product Management, M&A and Research & Development in public and private companies such as Shell Chemicals-Basell, UCB-Cytec, Huntsman, and Rohm Haas-Dow.

Additional members of New Diversey’s management team and Board of Directors will be named in the months leading up to the completion of the spin-off.
 
According to Jerome A. Peribere, Sealed Air’s president and CEO, the board and management team at Sealed Air believes the spin-off will allow both New Sealed Air and New Diversey to realize their full potential.  
 
“Diversey Care is a market leader thanks to its pioneering approach in the development of innovative solutions that create value for customers, including the Internet of Clean, Intellibot robotics, unmatched plant-based biodegradable chemistries and AHP disinfection technologies,” Peribere continued. “Ilham and her management team have been instrumental in transforming and positioning Diversey Care for sustainable and profitable growth.”
 
Separately, Sealed Air also announced that its Diversey Care division has reached a mutual agreement with SC Johnson & Son to end the existing business relating to Sealed Air’s distribution of SCJ-branded products to the professional market under the existing brand license agreement (BLA). The BLA will expire on May 2, 2017, with the exception of Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Czech Republic and Poland, where the BLA expires on January 1, 2017.