Group Management Report Products Safety and Health Environment Human Resources Social Commitment Consolidated Financial Statements 47
Group Basics
Organization and Legal Structure
The ALTANA Group is a global supplier of specialized chemical
products and related services for different branches of
industry and application fields. In the 2019 fiscal year, the
Group’s 64 consolidated subsidiaries and associated companies
achieved sales of more than € 2.2 billion. The ALTANA
Group employs about 6,500 people.
ALTANA’s activities are grouped into four divisions, each
of which has its own management and organizational
structure. The divisions and the Group companies assigned to
them are decentralized and empowered to largely make
market-, location-, and product-related decisions themselves.
The divisions are active worldwide and have their own
production sites and sales offices as well as research and development
laboratories in the regional markets that are
important for them.
ALTANA AG, headquartered in Wesel, is a stock corporation
in accordance with German law. As the ALTANA
Group’s managing company, it assumes strategic control of
the Group and the divisions. ALTANA AG is led by the Management
Board, whose members act on their own responsibility
and are solely committed to the interests of the company.
The Management Board’s activities are monitored by
the Supervisory Board, whose members also advise the
Management Board. More information on ALTANA AG’s management
and control system is provided in the Corporate
Governance section of this report.
All of the shares in ALTANA AG are held by SKion GmbH,
Bad Homburg v. d. H., Germany, an investment company
owned by Susanne Klatten.
The decentralized organizational structure combines the
individual operating units’ ability to act swiftly and cater
to the needs of markets and customers with the advantages
of a financially strong and internationally active group. The
organization is designed to adapt flexibly to changed market
conditions and a volatile economic environment. In addition,
new activities can be integrated into the organization
in a short time.
Business Activity and Divisions
As a globally active specialty chemicals group, ALTANA
focuses its core activities on sophisticated markets and customers
who need individual solutions.
A significant share of the ALTANA Group’s product and
service portfolio encompasses input materials for the production
of coatings, printing inks, and plastics. In addition,
ALTANA manufactures printing inks and coatings for spe-
cial applications, insulating resins for the electrical and electronics
industries, sealants for packaging, and measuring
and testing instruments.
Activities of the Divisions
BYK
The BYK division is one of the leading international suppliers
of special-purpose ingredients, so-called additives, used
in coatings and paints, plastics, exploration, and other industrial
applications. The division’s products, most of which
are used in only very small amounts, have a decisive influence
on the properties of their customers’ end products or en-
able customers to improve their manufacturing and industrial
processes.
Wetting and dispersing additives, one of the division’s
main product groups, help improve the distribution of
pigments and filling materials, and enable them to function
better, for example in coatings and plastics. With the help
of defoamers and air-release additives, foaming is prevented
during the manufacture of coatings and paints as well as
in end customers’ applications. Surface additives are used to