Air Products undergoes major overhaul

Air Products’ chairman, president and chief executive officer, Seifi Ghasemi, announced a major company restructuring.

“Today we are taking a major step to restructure for future success. Air Products had the industry leadership position 20 years ago and maintains leading market positions in key regions. We will regain that leadership position by first reorganizing our Industrial Gases segment on a geographic basis, and move to a decentralized, simpler, and more efficient structure which creates true profit and loss (P&L) accountability at many levels of the organization. The people at Air Products are ready to advance this great company, and I am excited by the significant opportunities in front of us,” says Ghasemi.

Effective at the start of Air Products’ 2015 fiscal year (October 1, 2014), the company will realign into seven reporting segments.

Industrial Gases will comprise four reporting segments and will include all Air Separation Units (ASUs), Hydrogen/HyCO plants (hydrogen, carbon monoxide and syngas), and the current Merchant Gases segment. Reflecting greater regional focus, over 95% of current Industrial Gases revenues will be contained in the geographic segments of Americas; Asia; and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Materials Technologies will include the Electronics Materials and Performance Materials businesses and will continue to operate as a global business.
Energy-from-Waste will include the two Tees Valley projects in the U.K.

A Corporate segment will include two global businesses (LNG and Helium containers) and corporate supporting functions.

To enable true P&L accountability, operations, distribution, and portions of other enabling functions will be integrated within Industrial Gases and Materials Technologies.

Press Release, September 18, 2014; Image: Air Products