MUNDOMATERIAL

I’ll be going to Barcelona in a few days to attend 3 different professional trade fairs: expoquimia, equiplast y eurosurfas. I’ll try to cover the event, giving bits of info, although I’m afraid I won’t be able to be there the 4 days (20-24th October). If you’re around and want to have a coffee and met up, just let me know. Expoquimia deals with the chemical industry in general, Equiplast is the international plastics and rubber exhibition and Eurosurfas will get together participants from the paints and coatings market. A little summary of the activities of the first two, the most interesting to me: Expoquimia exhibition Building blocks for climate change solutions, coming directly from the European Parliament building in Strasbourg Lab& Bio: 7.500 square metres dedicated to biotechnology and analytical instrumentation. There is also Biochem Seminar Theatre, to establish contacts within the biotech industry special seminars about Sustainable Chemistry... 
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The 10th of July Dow announced the buying of Rohm & Haas for $18.8 billions. For those of you not familiar with the companies, let’s just say that Dow is a huge chemical company, with annual sales of $54 billions. Rohm & Haas is a smaller player, but it has specialised products, which have a better profit margin. And those differences are the key to understand this sale. Dow becomes an even bigger company, but also it acquires a business less dependant on massive sales that allows it to diversify its portfolio. The table below shows Dow’s divisions, together with the products managed by each. Dow's Products and Divisions. Source: Dow's webpage In the materials area, Dow is well known for selling commodity products. Amongst them, the big classics: PP, PE and PS. To stay alive in the world of commodities, sales have to be huge and a strong distribution network is required. Production capacities are so big that costs are lowered. On the other hand, such a big company... 
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