Clariant  Clariant AG is a Swiss speciality chemicals company, formed in 1995 as a spin-off from Sandoz. The company is focused on four business areas: care chemicals (consumer and industrial); catalysis; natural resources (oil & mining, minerals); and plastics & coatings. Headquartered near Basel, Switzerland, the public company encompasses 110 operating companies in 53 countries. Major manufacturing sites are located in Europe, North America, South America, China and India. In 2015, sales from continuing operations were 5.8 billion CHF. European markets account for about one-third of sales, while Asia-Pacific, North America and Latin America account for about one-fifth each. Net income in 2015 was 227 million CHF, while EBITDA was 853 million CHF. The company has sales of around US$6 billion. Headquarters are officially in Muttenz, but most central functions are officed in a dedicated corporate centre in nearby Pratteln, both near Basel, Switzerland. Clariant's four business areas, are: Plastics & Coatings (around 42% of sales), Care Chemicals (around 25% of sales), Natural Resources (around 21% of sales) and Catalysts (around 12% of sales). The company started in 1995, as a spinoff (IPO) of the chemical operations of Sandoz, which then merged its pharmaceutical business with that of Ciba-Geigy to form Novartis. (Ciba-Geigy also went on to spin out its chemical operations, called Ciba Specialty Chemicals, which was later acquired by BASF.) In 1997, Clariant grew substantially, with the acquisition of the Hoechst speciality chemicals business. In 2000, Clariant bought British Tar Products (BTP plc), in 2006 Clariant bought Ciba's Masterbatches division, and in 2011 Clariant acquired German speciality chemical company Süd-Chemie. In 2013, Clariant divested its textile chemicals, emulsions and paper specialities businesses to SK Capital. In 2014, Clariant divested its leather services to Stahl Holdings and its detergents & intermediates business to Weylchem of the International Chemical Investors Group. Clariant International Ltd partners with matchmycolor LLC, a colour know-how company and Konica Minolta Inc, a Japanese technology company to efficiently colour match the polyolefin products easier and faster. In May 2017, Clariant and Huntsman Corporation announced that they would merge, as equals, forming HuntsmanClariant which would be the global leader in specialty chemical production - with the deal valued at $20 billion.