Henkel Huawei sells Epoxy Mold Compound factory and Hysol brand to Chinese conglomerate

UPDATE: CAPLINQ has become the offi­cial exclu­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Hysol Epoxy Mold Com­pounds in Europe and the Americas

Henkel has offi­cial­ly exit­ed the epoxy mold com­pound (EMC) busi­ness with sale of its Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­ing fac­to­ry to a group of Chi­nese investors.

Offi­cial details of the sale have yet to be released by either Henkel or the new Chi­nese own­ers, but sources close to the deal revealed that the sale was com­plet­ed in ear­ly spring and the new own­ers assumed own­er­ship effec­tive April 1st, 2017.

Henkel Huawei Electronics Co. Ltd. becomes Hysol Huawei Electronics Co. Ltd.

Details of the the sale reveal that Henkel sold its last epoxy mold com­pound fac­to­ry in Lianyun­gang, Chi­na to a group of Chi­nese investors and with it, sold the Hysol brand name under which the prod­ucts were sold. On the 1st of Decem­ber 2005, Henkel bought a major­i­ty stake in Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co. Ltd cre­at­ing a joint ven­ture that oper­at­ed under the name of Henkel Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co. Ltd. or HHE for short.

Effec­tive the 1st of April 2017, the Lianyun­gang fac­to­ry, locat­ed in the Chi­nese province of Jiang­su will be owned by and oper­ate under the name of Hysol Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co, Ltd. thus clev­er­ly keep­ing its HHE des­ig­na­tion while sub­sti­tut­ing the name Henkel for Hysol.

A long history of Hysol Epoxy Molding Compounds

The sale of Henkel’s epoxy mold­ing com­pound busi­ness marks the begin­ning of a new chap­ter in the his­to­ry of both epoxy mold com­pounds and the Hysol brand name. On June 26th 2000, Henkel acquired Dex­ter Elec­tron­ics for a stun­ning $675 mil­lion in cash, and in the process acquired the Olean, NY USA fac­to­ry that at the time had close to $80 mil­lion in sales of epoxy mold­ing com­pounds and coat­ing powders.

This was the same fac­to­ry that pio­neered the man­u­fac­tur­ing of high sol­id epoxy mold com­pounds under the brand name of Hysol, a com­pa­ny found­ed in 1948 by Russ Houghton in Olean that devel­oped the first epoxy mold com­pound to encap­su­late tran­sis­tors in 1964 – con­tribut­ing to a 90% drop in the cost of tran­sis­tors. Hysol merged with Dex­ter Cor­po­ra­tion in 1967 and con­tin­ued to sell Epoxy Mold Com­pound under the Hysol brand name.

In 2005, Henkel signed a joint ven­ture acquir­ing a major­i­ty share of Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co., Ltd. in Lianyun­gang, Chi­na — at the time, a domes­tic Chi­nese epoxy mold com­pound com­pa­ny that had an 80% share of the Chi­nese epoxy mold com­pound mar­ket. As part of Henkel’s epoxy mold com­pound strat­e­gy, they moved the all the semi­con­duc­tor grade epoxy mold com­pound pro­duc­tion to the new joint ven­ture which oper­at­ed under the name of Henkel Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co., Ltd. IN 2008, Henkel announced it would be clos­ing its Olean facil­i­ty.

In 2010, Henkel sold their Olean, NY fac­to­ry which still pro­duced epoxy coat­ing pow­ders, opti­cal­ly clear epoxy mold com­pounds and indus­tri­al old com­pounds to a small group of local investors who con­tin­ue to oper­ate the busi­ness under the name of SolE­poxy, Inc.

On April 1st, 2017, Henkel sold their Lianyun­gang, Chi­na facil­i­ty to a group of Chi­nese investors. As part of the deal, the new com­pa­ny also acquired the Hysol brand name, and has since oper­at­ed under the name of Hysol Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co. Ltd.

What is the future for Hysol Huawei and Hysol Epoxy Mold Compounds?

As with the SolE­poxy, Inc. sale, the Hysol Huawei Elec­tron­ics deal was essen­tial­ly the sale of a Henkel fac­to­ry and a spe­cif­ic line of prod­ucts pro­duced at that fac­to­ry. In the case of Hysol, they acquired the Hysol brand name, the epoxy mold­ing com­pounds pro­duced there and the cur­rent list of cus­tomers. They have a cur­rent dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment with Henkel until the end of 2017 to give them time to set up their own sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion network.

What exact­ly will hap­pen to the Hysol brand name and the epoxy mold­ing com­pounds made under that beloved brand name remains to be seen. Only time will tell whether Hysol Huawei Elec­tron­ics Co. Ltd will be able to main­tain the Hysol prod­ucts and the high stan­dards of qual­i­ty and inno­va­tion that its name represents.

Please vis­it us at www.caplinq.com to learn more about our whole range of epoxy mold com­pounds includ­ing our Semi­con­duc­tor Grade Epoxy Mold­ing Com­pounds, our Fiber­glass-rein­forced indus­tri­al epoxy mold com­pounds, and our Clear (CMC) and White (WMC) opto­elec­tron­ic mold com­pounds. If you have any oth­er ques­tions about epoxy mold­ing com­pounds, please feel free to leave a com­ment below or don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us.