About us

Binding the world together

We produce high-performance, highly specialised polymers and ingredients that bind the modern world together through the broadest range of everyday applications.

Working with over 6,000 customers, we help bring thousands of products to life – from adhesives to coatings, construction, and speciality healthcare applications.

Our chemistry is all around you. On your walls, under your feet, even wrapped around your lunch. It’s in the hygiene products that protect us and the infrastructure that supports our economy.

Innovation and sustainability inside

We are here to create innovative, sustainable solutions for the benefit of customers and society. It is this purpose that is helping us to grow, by turning ambitious ideas and technology into material reality every day.

Through our speciality polymers and ingredients for coatings, construction, adhesives, and healthcare and protection end markets, we not only help to meet essential consumer needs, we deliver solutions that are better for the planet too.

As the demand for more sustainable products grows stronger, so does our drive to be more agile, ingenious and forward-looking. Around 20% of our sales volumes are from new and patent protected products.

At our innovation centres of excellence in the UK, Germany, Malaysia and Ohio, USA we collaborate closely with our customers to develop new products and enhance existing ones tailored to their needs, with an increasing range of sustainability benefits.

Our 2030 decarbonisation targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative as being in line with what the latest climate science says is necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, and since 2021 we have held the London Stock Exchange Green Economy Mark, which recognises green technology businesses making a significant contribution to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy.

An evolving company

Our roots stretch back to 1863, but we have never stopped evolving. In that time, we have transformed from a diversified chemical company to a specialised polymer solutions provider, and we continue to work to become ever more focused, more specialised and more global.

We are proud to employ 4,200 people working across Europe, US, Middle East and Asia from more than 30 manufacturing sites and four innovation centres of excellence.

We are headquartered and listed in London, UK and have been in the FTSE4Good index for 10 years. In 2023, our revenues were £2.0 billion and EBITDA £142 million.