 Albemarle Corporation specialises in developing and manufacturing specialty
chemicals for the global market. The company has a diverse portfolio of products
that they sell to a variety of industries across 100 countries. Their operations are
divided into three business segments, Polymer Solutions, Catalysts, and Fine
Chemicals, which achieve sales at around USD 2.5 billion a year. With chemistry
at the heart of their business, Albemarle remains focused on innovation, a value
that has contributed greatly to their success in the industry over many years.
Highlighting that success, the company recently celebrated the opening of a
global shared services centre in Budapest, Hungary. Aptly named Albemarle's
Centre of Excellence (ACE), the facility was developed as part of their Project
One Albemarle initiative, which was created to standardise and streamline the
company's global operations.
IAccording to Luke Kissam, the company's
President, Budapest was a logical
location for the new shared services
centre. "Budapest is globally centrally
located," he says. "There is also a high
quality in the work force, and the ability
to speak multiple languages amongst the
graduates there is outstanding. The
shared services industry is not new in
Budapest. It is a developed industry with
plenty of infrastructure geared to support
it. We found it a welcoming environment
with all the skills that we needed."
As part of the Project One Albemarle
initiative, the ACE shared services centre
is designed to aid in standardising and
streamlining the company's processes, as
Kissam explains. "Albemarle has grown
organically and through acquisitions," he says "and we have different systems and
processes as a result, and these
differences create inefficiencies. With the
new centre we hope to globally
standardise processes that allow us to be
more flexible, to drive efficiencies and
rapidly implement best practices. And as
we continue to grow, Budapest will allow
us to integrate everything as quickly as
possible."
 MKissam's full name is Luther C. Kissam,
IV, and he graduated magna cum laude
from the University of South Carolina,
School of Law in 1989. Following this
he gained experience working in the
chemical industry, and was the Vice
President, General Counsel and
Secretary of Merisant Co, a
manufacturer of artificial sweeteners
and consumer foods. He also worked
as the Associate General Counsel of
Monsanto Company, which provides
agricultural products and solutions.
Kissam joined Albemarle as Vice
President, General Counsel and
Secretary in 2003, and in 2008 he took
on the additional responsibilities for
global manufacturing and operations,
as well as the health, safety and
environmental functions. In 2010
Kissam was elected as President of the
Albemarle Corporation, and he currently overseas all global business
and operational activities.
The history of the company dates back
to 1887 when the Albemarle Paper
Manufacturing Company was first
founded. In 1962 the Albemarle Paper
Manufacturing Company purchased
Ethyl Corporation through a leverage
buyout where they borrowed USD 200
million in order to acquire a company
more than ten times its own size.
Kissam claims that one of the reasons
for the acquisition was that Ethyl Corp
had an antiknock agent called tetraethyl
lead, which was added to gasoline
to reduce engine knocking and increase
the fuel's octane rating. "At the time,
tetra-ethyl lead was a principle product
for Ethyl Corp," says Kissam. "With
the acquisition, Albemarle Paper
Manufacturing Company became Ethyl
Corp, and tetra-ethyl lead was its main
product. The company then poured a
lot of its resources into research. They
were concerned about the toxicity of
lead and began looking for lead
scavengers such as bromine. A lot of
that research led to the foundation for
the businesses that we operate today."
Throughout the following years Ethyl
Corp continued with numerous acquisitions until 1994 when it spun off
its chemical business to create an
independent publicly traded company
named Albemarle Corporation after the
original Albemarle Paper Manufacturing
Company. Kissam claims the company
continues to grow both organically, and
through numerous acquisitions.  "One of
our major acquisition was in 2001 when
we acquired Martinswerk GmbH in
Bergheim, Germany, a flame retardant
business," he says. "Then in 2004, we hit
another milestone when we acquired
the refinery catalyst business of Akzo
Nobel N.V. which has sites in the
Netherlands, the US, France, Brazil,
Japan and Singapore. That was a
defining moment for Albemarle because
it provided us with a new business
segment. We plan to continue to expand
both organically and through what we
call these bolt-on acquisitions."
Albemarle's markets are roughly divided,
with around 45% in North and South
America, 35% in Europe, the Middle East
and India, and around 20% in the Asia
Pacific region. "These are the figures we
saw in 2009," says Kissam. "Over the next
decade I expect that sales into the Middle
East, Russia, India and the Asia Pacific
region will continue to grow, as will our
sales into South America, while we won't
see as much growth in North America.
We are entering into a period of time over
the next decade where the bulk of our
growth is going to come through the
emerging economies."
When it comes to competitive
advantage, Kissam claims the company's
focus on innovation and revolutionary
technologies is their biggest asset. "If
you look across our business, for
example, our catalyst segment, part of
that is a refinery catalyst business and we sell to big oil companies around the
world. The other part of Catalysts is our
polyolefin catalysts which go into the
production of plastics, like plastic
filmsand plastic bags. So our catalysts
products are sold to really big customers
that require top technology and
innovation from our products and
services. This is because our technology
will allow them to do things like reduce
sulphur emissions in crude oil so that
they can meet the ever-growing
demands in specifications of oil and fuel
in various countries around the world.
Our polyolefin catalysts allow our
customers to bring special qualities to
the polyethylene that they manufacture
so that they can differentiate their
products from other commodities that
are being made today. This is just one of
the important areas where technology
and innovation are critical to our
success."
Albemarle's Fine Chemicals division,
includes performance chemicals (the
company's bromine franchise) and fine chemistry services which include
products for the agricultural and
pharmaceutical industries as well as
custom manufacturing and organic
synthesis services. "For our
performance chemicals, we have
elemental bromine and other
derivatives such as inorganic bromides,
completion fluids, hydrobromic acid,
and sorbent technology. These
products go into the end markets such
as oil and gas, mercury control, water
purification, and food safety products,
most of which requirevery technical
development and application knowhow.
We also make a lot of agricultural
and pharmaceutical products where we
take things from the idea stage,
through to commercial production
quantities for large companies, and
again innovation is key."
 According to Kissam, the largest portion
of the Polymer Solutions division is their
flame retardant business. "We are one of
the few companies in the world that has
brominated flame retardants, mineralflame retardants and phosphorous flame
retardants," he says. "We are enabling the
use of plastics in high performance items.
For instance, in things like televisions,
computers or connectors, we deliver the
fire safety material for the manufacture of
those products. Our polymer solutions
segment, also includescuratives that
allow our customer's products to
meet manufacturing specifications.
Additionally, we produce anti-oxidants
and stabilisers that help prevent plastics
from breaking down over time and losing
their effectiveness. We also sell curatives
for epoxy, polyurethane and polyurea
systems. In effect our products are used
in our customer's products to give them
specific qualities to meet the ends
needed."
"Our three business sectors are tied
together by the service that we provide
to our customers, our innovation and
also anticipating their problems, being
there with a cost effective and
innovative solution that solves whatever
problem they might have for end
use."Kissam claims that Albemarle's
challenges are the same as their
customer's challenges. "We are moving
into emerging economies," he says. "We
have wonderful opportunities before us
and not really enough resources toexploit them all. So we need to pick the
right ones and utilise our resources as
efficiently as we can. In 2009 we took a
number of actions to reduce our
footprint and increase our efficiencies.
This has lowered our break- even point
so that we will be able to achieve great
results regardless of the state of the
economy. We are going to outperform
our competitors in the good times as
well as the bad."
 
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