Poor First-Half Performance, These Multinational Chemical Giants Adjust Strategies!

As of mid-August, 28 foreign chemical companies, including BASF, Dow, Honeywell, Evonik, Solvay, DuPont, Shin-Etsu, Clariant, Covestro, Arkema, SABIC, Huntsman, LyondellBasell, Trinseo, Saudi Aramco, Toray, Mitsubishi Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical, Mitsui Chemicals, and LG Chem, have released their latest performance results.

Due to uncertainties such as weak demand, slow economic recovery, and geopolitical risks, the second-quarter performance of several chemical giants generally declined. Only a few, such as Honeywell and DuPont-Danisco-Firmenich, achieved contrarian growth in the first half of the year.

Specifically, Honeywell's sales in the second quarter of 2025 reached $10.4 billion, an increase of 8% year-over-year. In response, Honeywell updated its full-year guidance for sales, segment margins, and adjusted earnings per share, expecting full-year sales to be between $40.8 billion and $41.3 billion, with organic sales growth ranging from 4% to 5%. Segment margins are expected to be between 23.0% and 23.2%, representing a year-over-year increase of 40 to 60 basis points.

It is worth noting that in February this year, Honeywell announced that its Board of Directors had completed a comprehensive review of its business portfolio and decided to separate its automation and aerospace businesses. This separation plan, together with the previously announced spin-off of the advanced materials business (currently expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2025), will result in three publicly listed industry leaders, with full completion planned for the second half of 2026.

In the second quarter of 2025, DuPont's net sales amounted to $3.26 billion, reflecting a 3% year-over-year increase. Organic sales grew by 2% (volume +4%, price -2%). Net income from continuing operations reached $238 million, a 35% increase year-over-year. Adjusted earnings per share totaled $1.12, growing by 15%. The spin-off of DuPont's electronics business is expected to be completed on November 1st. After the spin-off, the remaining industrial segment will be integrated into DuPont.

In the first half of 2025, DSM-Firmenich achieved total sales of 6.51 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 3%, with second-quarter sales reaching 3.236 billion euros, remaining flat year-on-year. The company's net profit in the first half of 2025 surged by 982%. However, DSM-Firmenich is also planning to divest its animal nutrition and health business, having completed the sale of its feed enzyme business to Novonesis for 1.5 billion euros on June 2, 2025.

Furthermore, many chemical industry giants experienced a general decline in their second-quarter performance.

In the first half of 2025, Borealis had a net sales of 4.165 billion euros, an increase of 7.08% year-on-year; net profit was 210 million euros, a decrease of 29.48% year-on-year. In the second quarter of 2025, Sumitomo Chemical had operating revenue of 526.1 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 14%; operating profit was 25.5 billion yen, an increase of 14 billion yen year-on-year.

In the first half of 2025, Saudi Aramco's total revenue was $223.135 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 7.9%; net profit was $48.684 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 13.6%. Among these, the total revenue for the second quarter was $108.572 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 13.5%; net profit was $22.673 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 22%.

Huntsman’s revenue for the first half of 2025 was $2.868 billion, down 6% year-on-year; net loss attributable to Huntsman was $163 million, compared to a net loss of $15 million in the same period last year. Among them, revenue for the second quarter of 2025 was $1.458 billion, down 7.4% year-on-year.

In the first half of this year, Dow achieved net sales of $20.535 billion, a decrease of 5.28% year-on-year; the pre-tax profit recorded a loss of $1.033 billion, compared to $1.057 billion in the same period last year; the net loss was $1.091 billion (approximately 7.8 billion RMB), compared to $996 million in the same period last year, turning from a profit to a loss.

In the first half of 2025, Wacker Chemie achieved sales of 2.89 billion euros, a decrease of 2.2% year-on-year. The cumulative net profit was negative 23 million euros, compared to 83 million euros in the same period last year. In the second quarter of 2025, sales amounted to approximately 1.41 billion euros, a year-on-year decrease of 3.7% and a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 4%. The main reasons were the weak dollar and a decline in sales volume.

In the first half of 2025, BASF achieved sales of 33.2 billion euros, a decrease of 493 million euros compared to the same period last year; net income was 887 million euros, a decline of more than 50% year-on-year. The company indicated that the decrease in sales was due to negative price growth in four of its six business segments, particularly in the chemicals segment.

In response to the pressure of declining performance following the release of earnings reports that fell short of expectations, several chemical giants have begun to implement deep strategic adjustments. Some are transferring businesses, dissolving subsidiaries, and laying off employees, while others are cutting expenditures.

For example, Mitsubishi Chemical transferred its plastic subsidiary that had been operating for 70 years. On July 25, after just announcing the exit from the polyester resin manufacturing business for printer toner, which had been operating for 36 years, on July 29, the company further announced that, based on its new medium-term management plan 2029, and for better business development, it would transfer its wholly-owned subsidiary J-Film Corporation to a special purpose entity of Marunouchi Capital Fund III, with the share transfer expected to be completed by December 29 this year.

In the first half of 2025, Huntsman's revenue was $2.868 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6%. The net loss attributable to Huntsman was $163 million, compared to a net loss of $15 million in the same period last year. The adjusted EBITDA was $146 million, a year-on-year decrease of 31.1%. To address the crisis, the company plans to lay off 10% of its workforce.

Evonik (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and Shandong Weilan Biological Technology Co., Ltd. formally signed a "Settlement Agreement" on July 31, 2025, deciding to initiate the dissolution and liquidation process of the joint venture Evonik Weilan Biotechnology (Shandong) Co., Ltd. and its Qingdao branch. The reason is that the current market environment changes and the actual business performance of the company have not met the expected targets. Evonik expects that if the global economy does not deteriorate further, the adjusted EBITDA for the entire year 2025 will reach the lower end of the forecast range (2 to 2.3 billion euros). To ensure good free cash flow, capital expenditures will be reduced by 100 million euros, down to approximately 750 million euros.

On August 14, LANXESS released its second-quarter results. Affected by the global market environment, sales fell by 12.6% to 1.47 billion euros, and EBITDA decreased by 17.1% year-on-year to 150 million euros. In early April, LANXESS Germany completed the sale of its Polyurethane Systems business unit, thus fully exiting the polymers business.

On August 11, U.S. acetic acid giant Celanese announced its second-quarter results, reporting net sales of $2.5 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 4.5%. In order to improve profitability and further save $5–10 million in costs by 2026, the company intends to divest its advanced electronic inks and pastes business to advance its cash generation and deleveraging strategy.

On August 4th, according to related reports, Dow has canceled its plan to build a chemical recycling plant with Mura Technology in Böhlen, Germany. In July, Dow announced it would shut down its ethylene cracker in Böhlen, Germany, as well as its chlor-alkali and vinyl (CAV) assets in Schkopau, Germany, and the basic silicones plant in Barry, UK (these are all higher-cost, higher-energy-consuming operations).