PCC SE

Chemicals group PCC SE celebrates anniversary: 25 years of value-driven growth - Seite 2

In the early years, rapid growth was initially achieved in the trading business with petrochemical and carbon-based commodities. This is still an important activity today; the founding company, now operating under the name PCC Trade & Services GmbH, remains the largest trading company in the Group. In 1997, PCC began its own processing of crude benzene in Ukraine, thus launching the Chemicals business - now its main source of sales and earnings.

Switch to joint-stock status and issue of the first corporate bond

In 1998, PCC GmbH was carved out to create PCC AG. The company headquarters became the PCC Villa, also in Duisburg's Homberg district. As a joint-stock corporation, PCC also issued its first bond. To this day, 20 years later, corporate bonds remain PCC's main source of funding as flexible financing instruments allowing independence from banks. In 2007, the Group adopted the legal form of a European corporation (Societas Europaea) in 2007: "Right from the outset, we have regarded Europe as our home market," explains Preussner. "The conversion to an SE is intended to underline our European identity."

PCC Rokita S.A. becomes part of the PCC Group - and then a listed company

The process of diversification began in the year 2000: The acquisition of shares in a Polish logistics company provided the beginnings of the Logistics division. And in 2002, even before the eastward expansion of the EU which, two years later, attracted the attention of many investors to the new markets in Eastern Europe, PCC AG bought a third of the shares in one of Poland's largest chemical groups, today's PCC Rokita SA. In the following year, the company acquired a majority stake in this former state-owned company based near the small town of Brzeg Dolny, some 40 kilometers from Wrocław.

Through a multi-year investment program, productivity was continuously increased and a flourishing chemicals concern was born. As a result, PCC Rokita SA developed into the strongest pillar of the PCC Group, due particularly to its position as a major producer of polyols and basic chemicals such as chlorine. To this day, the company is Poland's only producer of polyether polyols as important feedstocks for the manufacture of polyurethane foams. 2014 saw PCC SE acquire the remaining shares in PCC Rokita to become its sole owner. And also in 2014, PCC Rokita proved how far it had come with a successful IPO. Over the four years since its initial listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the share price has risen more than 250 percent.