Bingham McCutchen and Squire Sanders have advised Japan’s Kuraray Co on its purchase of DuPont’s glass-laminating and vinyls business for $543 million.
The business, which makes resins used in windshields and industrial products, will give synthetic fibre maker Kuraray access to cheap U.S. natural gas, a key raw material, an analyst said.
Kuraray will also pay the value of inventories, the companies said in a statement.
The business, housed in DuPont’s packaging & industrial polymers unit, has 600 employees and six manufacturing sites in the United States, Europe and Asia.
The Bingham McCutchen team that advised Kuraray included lawyers from the firm’s New York, Tokyo, Boston, Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong offices. New York partners Kevin Sheridan and Satoru Murase and counsel Joe Castelluccio led the team on the transaction, with assistance from partners Scott Bluni, Anthony Carbone, Jeanie Cogill, Rachelle Dubow, Doug Schwarz, Fred Gallo, Axel Vogelmann, Tsugumichi Watanabe, James Thompson, Matthew Puhar and Vance Chapman.
Squire Sanders’ Washington DC partner Barry Pupkin provided antitrust advice to Kuraray.
Philadelphia-headquartered law firm Ballard Spahr advised DuPont on the deal, with a team led by partner Craig Circosta.
The sale of the business, which reported sales of about $500 million in 2012, is expected to close in the first half of 2014.
Kanishk Verghese is North Asia jounalist at ALB. Follow us on Twitter: @ALB_Magazine.
