By George Gill
 
Cognis’ functional products business unit, including synthetic lubricants, reported €483 million (U.S. $616.5 million) in sales in 2010’s first half, up 21.4 percent from €398 million in the year-earlier period.
 
“This was driven by strong demand in all market segments, including automotive, housing and mechanical engineering,” Cognis stated.
 
As a whole, Cognis posted six-month sales of €1.5 billion, up 16.3 percent from €1.3 billion in the first half of 2009. The company overall recorded  €109 million in net profit for 2010’s first six months, compared to a €20 million loss for the first half of 2009.
 
“The development we are experiencing indicates not just a recovery, but real growth in consumer and industrial markets,” said Cognis CEO Antonio Trius. “We strengthened our market position, and maintained our margins despite higher raw material costs. The excellent performance was again largely driven by our improved product mix, along with higher sales volumes, higher capacity utilization and stable operating costs.”
 
Trius noted that Cognis’s third quarter was off to a strong start, and it expects to achieve a record full-year result. “However, the economic situation remains highly uncertain, and trading conditions are difficulty to predict,” he cautioned. “We expect that markets will remain volatile, and that the recovery will continue at a more moderate pace in the second half of 2010.”
 
BASF of Ludwigshafen, Germany, announced plans in June to buy Cognis for €3.1 billion ($3.8 billion), in a deal expected to close by November 2010.
 
Since November 2001, Cognis Group has been owned by a consortium of private equity funds advised by Permira, Goldman Sachs and SV Life Sciences. Dusseldorf, Germany-based Cognis has about 5,600 employees across 62 locations in 30 countries.