Evonik is merging its Personal Care and Household Care businesses with its associated oleochemistry platform to form a new Care Solutions business unit.

The business, which will have around 1,250 employees and combined sales of approximately €900 million, will launch on Jan. 1, 2019 under the leadership of Tammo Boinowitz, currently head of Evonik Personal Care.

“In the past we’ve worked for our customers in parallel across these complementary business lines – the reorganization means that our customers can expect more innovative products, leaner processes and much closer customer relationships,” Boinowitz said.

Evonik said the reorganization will allow it to realize increased synergies leading to more efficient processes, a leaner organization and improved interface management.

As a result of the merger, the company will end its presence in Milton Keynes, UK, and Granollers, Spain, in 2019 and 2020 respectively. In addition, the newly formed Care Solutions business will withdraw from sites in Hanau and Schlüchtern in Germany.

Three of the five product lines will be managed from the US, while future production at Care Solutions will be carried out in Germany (Essen, Duisburg and Steinau), the Americas (Mapleton, Janesville/Milton, Reserve and Hopewell in the  US and Americana in Brazil), and Asia (Shanghai, China and Bekasi Timur, Indonesia).

According to Evonik, the four global product lines of cosmetic solutions, active ingredients, cleaning solutions and technical applications will all benefit by having a much clearer focus on specialty products that differ significantly from each other. Dedicated application technology groups will also ensure that the industrial focus will be retained. The fifth product line, base ingredients, will bundle products together where value and cost is crucial, the company said.

Together, the five product lines will serve the following markets: hair and skin care, sun care, bath and shower, color cosmetics, age defying, fabric care, deodorants, liquid laundry detergents, industrial and institutional cleaning, and mining and drilling fluids.