Another venerable corporate identity has been rendered obsolete. Evonik Industries AG has acquired Degussa to form what they call the Chemicals Business Area. Evonik has interest in energy and real estate as well.
It always surprises me to see a buyout that includes the retirement of an entire corporate identity. It’s the same with Union Carbide or Hoechst AG (now Aventis). There is so much name recognition with company’s like this that I really wonder what the rationale is for the change.
I recall one evening at a bar in Houston we were drinking with some Degussa business develpment guys after a tedious day at a conference. After listening to these German guys griping about American drivers, I took a sip of my gin and tonic and asked the question-
“So, was there a founder named Herr Degussa somewhere, sometime in the past?” They looked at me for a moment and then began to laugh. Turns out that the word Degussa comes from “Deutsch Gold and Silver” in some fashion. Or, so they said.
Best wishes to the good folks at (former) Degussa in their new adventure.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
“It’s the same with Union Carbide…” I always thought that they drowned this name to avoid any association with Bhopal.
This truely is an era of “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard”. What is a Lanxess or Ineos? What will they be next week?
I’m sure there was a C&EN article- Fair point. My career as a wire service provider is off to a poor start.
Articles on this have been bubbling up in other trade media recently. I’m not so interested in the mechanics of it as the broader phenomenon of it.
As a marketing guy I boggle at the disruption of branding and customer loyalty. This kind of thing can be very disruptive to customers who are locked into specifications with customers downstream. A new supplier often means a review of specs and pricing in many supply agreements. QA hates this kind of thing.
The shift in staffing makes and breaks relationships and throws pricing and availability into a temporary tizzy. The new keepers may have new ideas about who their preferred customers are.
Usually the new management wants continuity, but often as not, they want to pitch business units into the market place.
*** Here Th’ Gaussling made an unfortunate error in a comment ***
Actually this is wrong. Degussa AG was owned by Ruhrkohle AG after they bought out the remaining share holder and sold off some assets to BASF AG to finance the deal. As Ruhrkohle also operated german deep shaft coal mining and wanted to get out of that businesses long term liability issues they had to set up a trust fund that will be financed by the sale of all non-coal parts of Ruhrkohle. The name of the company sold by way of IPO is Evonik and Degussa was folded into that company as its chemicals division.
Looks like I’m full of it all the way around. I’ll research things better before I open my yap.