Hempel has announced the acquisition of its South African toll manufacturer The Coatings Manufacturing Company (TCMC). Since 2011, Hempel South Africa has partnered with TCMC, which is located close to Johannesburg, to better serve customers in the region; the partnership covered the HEMPATEX and HEMPALIN range of products.

Hempel’s Group Executive Vice President & CFO Kim Junge Andersen comments: “The acquisition of TCMC supports our continued global growth and will open new business possibilities for Hempel in Sub-Saharan Africa. The new factory will allow us to reduce lead times, streamline our supply chain, increase our ability to serve the regional market and offer a more complete assortment to our customers in the decorative, protective and marine industries.”

The new plant in South Africa is one of four new factories that Hempel has added to its worldwide production footprint since 2014, as part of its One Hempel – One Ambitiongrowth strategy.

Hempel inaugurated its first 100 per cent water-borne coatings factory in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) in February 2014 and a new state-of-the-art factory in India in September 2014. In December 2014, as part of the acquisition of Schaepman, a Dutch supplier of specialized industrial, protective and decorative coatings, Hempel gained a new production facility in the Netherlands.

Last month, Hempel also signed a binding agreement to acquire Jones-Blair Company, a North American coatings supplier for the protective and waterproofing markets, which has a production facility in Dallas, Texas. The transaction is expected to close in early March 2015, subject to regulatory approval.

“We created strong growth momentum in 2014 and we will continue building on it,” Kim Junge Andersen says, adding: “2015 it is an exciting year for Hempel. We are celebrating 100 years of being a successful and responsible business. It also marks the continuation of our growth strategy. Our focus is still on growing our core segments – Decorative, Protective and Marine – and we have launched several initiatives and products that will help us achieve our growth goals.”