Fırat Fırat
Polisan Chemicals Cement Additives Sales Manager
Polisan Holding, which is one of Turkey’s wellestablished companies is drawing a successful graph with its activities in different fields. Could you tell about your organization and its main fields of activity, especially construction chemicals?
The commercial activities of the Bitlis Family, which started with textile in the 1920s, continued with the retail identity until the establishment of Şark Mensucat, which operated as integrated fabric dyeing and weaving facilities in 1956, and the brand “Polisan” was registered in 1964. The company which took the name “Polisan Kimya Sanayii A.Ş.” in 1967 has become the producer of emulsion resins in Turkey. Polisan laid the foundations of Poliport, one of the largest chemical storage terminals in Kocaeli, by purchasing the land on which facilities in Dilovası are located in 1971. Polisan, the first resin and glue manufacturer in Turkey, began paint production with the brand name Polisan Paint in 1985. Polisan Holding was established in 2000. In 2004, a business partnership (JV) agreement in the field of emulsion resins was launched with Rohm and Haas, one of the world’s largest chemical manufacturers. After the acquisition of Rohm and Haas in 2009, the partnership continued between Polisan Holding and Dow Chemical. In this regard, construction chemicals and Adblue © were included in the field of activity of Polisan Chemicals. Polisan Holding established Polisan Real Estate in 2006 to evaluate its properties. In 2013, it purchased the only polyethylene terephthalate (PET) granule producer in Greece and the Balkans. 50% of Polisan Paint shares were transferred to Kansai Paint, one of the top ten paint manufacturers in the world in 2016, and a second partnership was signed with a world giant and the new facility investment started in 2016 by this partnership has been put into action at GEBKİM in 2019. Today, Polisan Holding operates in 4 main branches: Chemicals, paint, real estate and port and has been traded on Borsa Istanbul since 2012. Polisan Holding operates in the paint industry with the brand Polisan Kansai and in the chemical industry with Polisan Chemicals, Polisan Hellas, Polisan Maroc, Rohm & Haas and in the port sector with Poliport Chemicals and in the real estate sector with Polisan Real Estate.
The field of activity of Polisan Chemicals is the production and sales of Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde Resins, Construction Chemicals (concrete, cement and underground chemicals) and AUS 32-AdBlue ©. Polisan Chemicals, as the first manufacturer of Formaldehyde Resin application areas of which are fiberboard, paper impregnation, MDF and plywood, has been one of the first manufacturers of AdBlue © in Turkey reducing NOx exhaust gas emission by 80% and contributing to the environmental cleanliness for the giants like Lukoil, BP, OMV and Total in 2009 and has also started selling concrete chemicals that same year. Polisan Chemicals, focusing on expanding its products in new markets, different usage areas and exports ; has put two production facilities into action in Adana and Samsun in addition to the plants in Dilovası for the production of building chemicals in 2017 and also founded Polisan Maroc in Morocco in the same year.
What are your works that have come to the fore on behalf of the company recently?
Polisan Holding Management, started it efforts in order to restructure Polisan Holding and its Group Companies in 2019 with the best practices within the frame of a flexible and agile brand vision that has a global perspective and that has placed sustainability and innovation culture at its focus. The focus was on the “human” in actions taken to realize the vision of the “Polisan of the Future”. New roles and responsibilities for needs were identified. With the restructuring carried out at all levels of the company, our organization has further enriched. In our organizational structure it was ensured that we were all looking in the same direction and common goals were set based on the concepts of transparency, teamwork and accountability. Productivity analyzes were performed in each of our lines of business, by taking into consideration the optimization of market share and profitability. Our strategies have been determined according to our new road maps. What we can do in the field of innovation, R&D and digitalization has been evaluated and our digital transformation process has begun. When we entered the new-year, we moved to our new business environment designed with a smart office approach. We accelerated our work in this field with the aim of increasing our brand awareness in foreign markets.
What is the share and place of the company in the cement and concrete industry? Can you give information about the positioning of the company by evaluating the figures like production capacity, sales turnover, export etc.?
Polisan Chemicals has become one of the top 3 companies in the sector with approximately 20% market share in the construction chemicals market, which has 7 foreign and nearly 20 domestic producers. Polisan Chemicals, has increased its EBITDA margin up to 12.7 % in 2019 despite the contraction in the cement and concrete sector reaching 40%-50% as a result of the economic fluctuations experienced in Turkey and recorded a revenue of 346 million TL. The building chemicals product group received a 31% share of the total revenues. In the first quarter of 2020, the income of the Construction Chemicals group increased by 7.1% compared to the same period last year, especially with the support of cement additives. To date, exports have been made to 15 different countries and distributorships and franchises have been established in Romania, Moldova, Northern Cyprus, Northern Iraq, Kosovo and Georgia.
2020 is going through a difficult period due to the pandemic that covers the world. Can we get an overall assessment for your company and industry?
As Polisan Holding, as of the first day of the pandemic’s announcement, we followed the statements of the Ministry of Health and related authorities instantly and applied them. With our “focus on people” approach, we have taken measures for the medium and long-term interests of all our stakeholders by prioritizing human health. By creating a board with the participation of experts from the relevant departments, we have informed all our employees about hygiene, rotating work, working from home, travel, service, fever measurement, issues to be considered in the office, on the field and in common areas. In this regard, we immediately implemented action plans that will ensure the continuity of our operations and ensure the uninterrupted service of our customers. By keeping our stocks necessary for the ongoing demand in the field, we have stopped production at our two plants in Dilovası and GEBKİM, taking into account health measures and field demand as of March 31. We established an open, transparent and effective communication network with all our stakeholders. We follow the developments instantly. In the financial field, we have taken actions to prevent a possible liquidity problem and measures to reduce our costs by approaching working capital with maximum sensitivity on the basis of our Group Companies. While we did not interrupt our ongoing investments, we slowed down some of our investment plans within the framework of our prudence principle with a selective and growth-oriented approach. We continue to plan the production processes of our Group Companies by closely following the market dynamics. As for Polisan Chemicals, in the formaldehyde product group we started to supply products to the companies that used to produce their own resins but started to make foreign purchases in this period due to Covid-19. Since some mine and tunnel projects that we supply underground product group have been stopped, we closely follow the supply-demand dynamics in the market. We started to take the feedback of the measures implemented to reduce the production and financing costs. As Polisan Chemicals, we focused on protecting our revenues and managing the working capital needs at optimum efficiency by focusing on value-added products and following export opportunities in the upcoming period.
You are manufacturing with many years of experience coming from different sectors. Which features differentiate you from your competitors?
As a result of the inspections carried out by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, Polisan Chemicals received the R&D Center Certificate and title as of 06 June 2017, as it has an R&D unit with the required qualifications, skills and criteria. Our R&D Center carries out studies aimed at the production of specific additives, especially Construction Chemicals, Cement, Concrete and Underground Chemicals. In our R&D center, joint projects are carried out with universities, and national and international publication studies are carried out in cement, concrete and underground chemicals. In parallel with the development of Polycarboxylate (PC) based products in the concrete chemical additive group, these products started to be preferred and demanded in the market. We are one of the companies that can perform the PC containing chemical additives production in Turkey. As we are producing construction chemicals in our production facilities located in three different regions of Turkey, we are able to deliver on time and to provide technical services to our customers. By providing services from Poliport, a Polisan Holding Group Company, which provides bulk liquid, dry cargo and warehouse storage services in Dilovasi, we also provide the advantage of more economical supply of different raw materials from many countries of the world by sea freight.
You also have partnerships with institutions located in different regions around the world. Can you tell us about these partnerships and collaborations?
Polisan Holding which started production of emulsion polymers in 2001 with the brand Polisan Chemicals for the first time in Turkey; established a partnership with Rohm and Haas, one of the world’s leading companies in this regard in 2004. After the acquisition of Rohm and Haas by Dow Chemical, one of the world’s largest chemical companies, in 2009, this partnership continues with Dow Chemical, one of the world’s chemical giants. In this partnership, Polisan Holding holds a 40% share and Dow Chemical has a 60% share. This partnership pioneers in introducing innovative and environmentally friendly products to the market. Polisan Holding established the company “Polisan Hellas SA” in Greece in 2013 and purchased 100% of the assets of Spanish Artenius Hellas. The facility, built on a total of 75 decares of land including a 15-decare closed area, is the only Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) granule producer in Greece and the Balkans. It produces Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) granules and bottle preforms, which are widely used in soft drinks, water, food and beverage containers and synthetic fiber. Since 2014, when Polisan Hellas started its operations in the Greek market, it has grown by adding the world’s leading beverage producers to its customer portfolio. 50% of Polisan Boya shares were transferred to Kansai Paint, one of the top ten paint manufacturers in the world in 2016, and a second partnership was signed with a world giant and the new facility investment started in 2016 by this partnership has been put into action at GEBKİM in 2019. The new facility started production with an annual design capacity of 180,000 tons / shift. The new facility is Turkey’s first LEED Gold certified paint plant which was built with international standards and has EN 1090-2 document, and it is the 308th production facility in the world is having this certificate.
Polisan Maroc was established and started production in Morocco in 2017 as part of Polisan Chemicals’ growth strategy in the field of building chemicals, in order to support the opening to the African market. Its fields of activity include the production and sale of concrete, cement and underground chemical additives, as well as the sale of Aus 32.
How do you evaluate your production technology? What are your recent investments in this field?
Within the scope of digitalization at Polisan Chemicals, we have an investment plan for digitization and automation in order to increase the efficiency in production. We continue our efforts for digitizing the reporting systems to increase customer satisfaction.
You also have serious work on sustainability. Can you tell us about your work in this field?
Polisan Holding and Group Companies are working under the guidance of many national and international standards for providing high quality products and services within the framework of international management systems, reflecting the continuous improvement and development perspective to all of its activities, increasing customer satisfaction day by day, working with the principle of zero accident on occupational health and safety and environmental issues, leaving a healthy working platform and environment for future generations, minimizing the consumption of natural resources by effectively managing energy consumption and ensuring the security of corporate information heritage. In accordance with national and international legislation requirements; there are 7 different management systems implemented in our Dilovası, Adana and Samsun facilities. Polisan Chemicals continues its health, safety and environmental activities in line with the TRIPLE RESPONSIBILITY ® (Responsible Care®) commitments with Poliport and Polisan Kansai Paint Group Companies as a member of the association Turkey Chemical Manufacturers Association under the authority of European Chemical Industrialists (CEFIC) Council. Polisan Chemicals has R&D Center, Authorized Liability Certificate, AdBlue VDA Certificate, Ultraline Antifreeze TSE Certificate, Urea Formaldehyde Resin TSE Certificate and CE Certificates.
Could you talk about your strategies and targets in general for 2020 and beyond?
The concrete additive market in Europe is around 1.2 million tons / year in volume. Turkey, represents 40% of this market with 480 thousand tons/year. According to the European Ready Mixed Concrete Association (ERMCO) data of 2018; the total production of all European Union member countries was 250.4 million cubic meters, while Turkey alone has produced 100 million cubic meters of concrete. With this production volume Turkey is Europe’s number 1, and world’s number 3 ready-mixed concrete market. In addition, with its annual production capacity of 66 million tons, it is the 4th largest cement producer in the world after China, India and the USA. Polisan Chemicals is in a position to take a large share from the market with its concrete and cement additives production facilities located at three points of Turkey which possess such a major cement and concrete production capacity and market. In parallel with the development of Polycarboxylate (PC) based products in the concrete chemical additive group, these products have started to be preferred and demanded in the market. Polisan Chemicals has been one of the few companies producing raw materials for chemical additives containing PC at their own facilities in Turkey thanks to investments made in Dilovasi factory. After investing in Morocco in line with its vision of becoming a global player in the Construction Chemicals market, Polisan Chemicals plans to establish new facilities in North Africa, Asian and European markets with the goal of starting production in other regional countries it exports to and creating sales potential in new markets.
Fırat Fırat
Graduated from Çukurova University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Civil Engineering Department in 2006. He worked in different positions in the cement and concrete industry between 2007-2010. He worked abroad between 2010 and 2012. He worked in Cement and Concrete Additive sales in the building chemicals sector between 2012-2016. Since 2016, he has been working as a Cement K. Additives Sales Manager at Polisan Kimya Company.
