Tyre silica to remain a Solvay business following company split

By December 2023 Solvay will have been separated into two independent publicly listed companies, with its tyre silica business belonging to the firm focusing on essential chemicals. The names of these upcoming companies are Solvay and Syensqo.

“Solvay has a 160-year legacy that will be passed on for generations to come and the names of our new companies reflect this perfectly,” states Dr Ilham Kadri, Solvay’s chief executive officer. “Solvay will create and deliver essential solutions in housing, health, nutrition and mobility, which fulfil the basic needs of humanity. It will enable vital solutions that are at the heart of people’s everyday lives. Syensqo will be a company of explorers who will usher in breakthroughs that will advance humanity. I am so proud of our teams who have made this possible and excited about the bright future of both Solvay and Syensqo.”

Solvay – the next generation

When Solvay announced in March 2022 that it was reviewing plans to separate the company, it gave the name EssentialCo to the firm that would contain its “mono-technology businesses.” EssentialCo has now been rechristened as Solvay and is expected to “carry on the legacy of mastering the elements that are essential for a sustainable world.”

The new Solvay’s remit is to “focus on providing society and generations to come with sustainable solutions meeting their most essential needs,” including “making the tyres of our cars more sustainable.”

Syensqo

Scrabble players take note – the planned firm dubbed SpecialtyCo last year has been renamed Syensqo. It will “play a key role in the future of clean mobility” and include the Specialty Polymers, Composites, Novecare, Aroma, Technology Solutions, and Oil & Gas businesses, as well as the four growth platforms in batteries, green hydrogen, thermoplastic composites, and renewable materials and biotechnology.

Solvay doesn’t shed light on how the new company name is pronounced, but gives the following breakdown of why it was chosen:

• SY links back to the first and last letters in Solvay.
• EN is a nod to Ernest Solvay’s name.
• SYENS refers to Solvay’s scientific heritage, which goes back to 1911, when its founder Ernest Solvay brought 24 of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds together – including Albert Einstein and Marie Curie – for the first Solvay Conference.
• Q points to this same 1911 conference, which laid the foundations for Quantum Physics.
• QO is for company.