Industrial Minerals


Talk from the Top: “We are pursuing a very clear acquisition strategy”

February 2012

by Alex Feytis

Christian Kather, CEO of world no.2 talc producer Mondo Minerals, talked to IM about the strategy to develop the plastics market & grow through acquisitions in Asia & South America

Keywords: Mondo, talc, plastics, pigment

Finland’s Mondo Minerals BV, the world’s second largest talc producer, was acquired by private equity group Advent International Corp. from Hg Capital, at the end of last year.

HgCapital, which had acquired Finland’s Mondo Minerals from European ground calcium carbonate producer (GCC) Omya AG in 2007, put Mondo up for sale in March 2011 and announced in July that it was intending to sell it to Advent.

The sale of Mondo, which produces about 800,000 tpa - 13% of world talc production - was finalised at the end of October 2011 for an undisclosed amount.Christian Kather, CEO Mondo MineralsHow is the talc industry performing?The talc industry has recovered from the 2009 downturn and is on the growth path again. Especially the plastics industry has benefitted from the strong automotive sales in 2011. In the future, we expect further growth of high-value talc products owing to the...