Bayer MaterialScience has been operating under the Covestro name since Sept. 1, 2015. The company is now legally and economically independent, but will remain a subsidiary of Bayer AG. Bayer wants to float Covestro on the stock market by mid-2016 at the latest in order to concentrate exclusively on the life sciences businesses.
“Independence enables us to bring our strengths to bear in global competition more quickly, effectively and flexibly,” said Covestro CEO Patrick Thomas. “We can now position ourselves purely as a polymers producer and thus more efficiently in our competitive environment.”
Covestro has a new logo and a new vision: “to make the world a brighter place.” “We fulfill this vision by inspiring innovation and driving growth through profitable technologies and products that benefit society and reduce environmental impacts,” Thomas said.
Covestro supplies its products to industries around the world, such as the automotive, construction and electronics sectors, as well as to the furniture, sporting goods and textiles industries. The company is helping to meet the major challenges of our time, from climate change and resource depletion, increasing mobility and urbanization to population growth and demographic change.
Covestro maintains its commitment to the textiles industry, continuing to develop the technology and services model it launched under the brand name INSQIN in 2014. INSQIN provides a platform for the industry to access a new generation of polyurethane (PU) synthetics and other PU-coated fabrics. The new generation of materials addresses both product innovation needs and the sustainability agenda to which leading brands in the industry are increasingly committed, since they are processed entirely without solvents and thus eliminate pollution risks, also showing strongly reduced resource consumption. The INSQIN offer has recently been extended with the introduction of new bio-based PU dispersions under the Impranil eco name.
Other new developments include Impranil DAA for even softer materials for apparel, Impranil DLE for higher performance sports shoe uppers; and Impranil DLC-T for durable automotive interiors.
“Our new name is derived from the very essence of our company and how we work,” said Nicholas Smith, global head of Textile Coatings, Covestro, “with the 'Co' in Covestro standing for our commitment to collaborative partnership with the industries that we serve, while 'vest' refers to the fact that we are well-invested in state-of-the-art facilities, and 'stro' comes from “strong”, referring to the fact that we are already a strong company, strong in technology, in our markets and in our people.”
An example of this commitment to collaboration in the industry and to sustainability as an overarching business principle is the recently launched INSQIN Partner Manufacturer Program, which seeks to break down supply chain barriers to innovation by connecting audited manufacturers of new materials with downstream players seeking to source such materials.
Source: Covestro
