Another large takeover in the wood finishes sector has just been announced.
US firm RPM International’s RPM2 Group has acquired UK-based Morrells Wood Finishes Ltd – a large manufacturer of highperformance wood finishes with annual sales of about £21m and nearly 150 employees. The company will remain a stand-alone operation within RPM2’s Wood Finishes Group.
With more than 100 years’ experience, Morrells Wood Finishes designs, manufactures and distributes a portfolio of high-performance wood coating systems. The Morrells product line includes proprietary wood stains, lacquers, colourants and adhesives for niche applications in the furniture, cabinetry, and building construction and restoration sectors.
The company’s products are sold under the Xerofire, Induro and Omnia brands. Morrells also provides professional application equipment and accessories under its Sprayshop brand.
"We intend to accelerate Morrells’ growth by leveraging its coatings technologies across the RPM network," said RPM.
RPM International’s subsidiaries are world leaders in specialty coatings, sealants, building materials and related services for both industrial and consumer markets. Another US-based company – Sherwin- Williams – has also acquired UK and European coatings operations in recent years.
The company, one of the main players in the UK industrial wood coatings sector, acquired Arch Industrial Wood Coatings in 2010, giving it the strong made-in-Italy Sayerlack brand, while the takeover in the same year of Sweden-based Becker Acroma further added to its stable of wood coating products. Sherwin-Williams also owns the Ronseal business targeted at end-users.
The Sayerlack brand comprises a wide range of PU, waterborne and acrylic products for interior and exterior wood, while former Becker Acroma products (the brand name has now been phased out and replaced with the Sherwin-Williams name) are based on Nordic coating technologies and are typically used by large industrial clients such as IKEA and Nobia. Graham Buchan, managing director of Sherwin-Williams’ UK & Ireland product finishes division, said the group’s recent innovations included LED coating technology and edge coatings.
In time, it is looking to leverage its US industrial wood coatings experience and product stable to bring certain products to Europe.
"One of the main thrusts in Sherwin- Williams at the moment is to develop capability in metal and plastics, as we are already a substantial player in industrial wood coatings in Europe and the UK," said Mr Buchan.
Meanwhile at Akzo Nobel Industrial Coatings, the company’s Carl Circus said the group’s R&D operations in central Europe were working on new product development. New products from Akzo Nobel include Duraflex, a long-lasting flexible opaque resin technology, which creates a flexible coating to improve durability.
Meanwhile, CM4 is just starting to be promoted. This is a resin technology that Akzo Nobel says is added to the coating to give an anti-brushing performance designed to help avoid the milky haze problem on exterior joinery when a coating is exposed to moisture before it is fully cured. "This is a significant development," said Mr Circus. "This problem has been around for many years and CM4 is a massive innovation."
Akzo Nobel is also working on radical technology to use UV curing for exterior coatings. Normally the instant drying technology is used for interior coatings. It would speed up the whole process for coating of exterior joinery.
"Many of the problems associated with factory coated joinery are that it is not fully cured," he added.
Water-based Technology
At Akzo Nobel’s decorative coatings division, much of its R&D is focused on improvements in water-based technology in trim, woodstain and varnishes as part of a strategy to move the market away from solvent-based products.
"Although the benefits are clear, waterbased products still occupy little market share, representing just 23.2% of sales," said Samantha Balloch, Dulux Trade marketing manager at Akzo Nobel Decorative Coatings. "Historically, they have been less durable and more difficult to apply than their solvent counterparts, which has hindered widespread adoption.
"However, new state-of-the-art technologies – made of hybrid alkyd emulsions – now offer a long-lasting and tough finish with improved flow, as well as ease of application on par with solvent-based products’ performances." Meanwhile, Osmo UK is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Managing director Steve Grimwood founded the company in 1990 when he began stocking wood finishes in his garage.
Now, Osmo UK, which focuses on renewable natural vegetable oils to provide consumers with an eco-friendly alternative to wood finishing, dispatches hundreds of orders a week and offers training programmes to its customers.
Its product range includes finishes for cleaning products, wood flooring and interior and exterior wood products. Its Polyx-Oil wood finishes range is used by its customers on flooring, wooden furniture, doors and joinery.
Osmo’s new exterior products include new colour Bog Oak for the Decking Oil range, while Natural Oil Woodstain gives a wider colour range of colour tones.
