Trinseo PLC - Annual Report: 2015 (Form 10-K)

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES
EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended: December 31, 2015 

◻TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES
EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from                      to                      

Commission File Number: 001-36473

Trinseo S.A.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

1000 Chesterbrook Boulevard, Suite 300

Berwyn, PA 19312

(Address of Principal Executive Offices)

(610) 240-3200

(Registrant’s telephone number)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ◻    No  ☒ 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ◻    No  ☒ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ◻ 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ◻ 

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☒ 

Indicate by check mark whether the Company is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

 

 

Indicate by check mark whether the Company is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ◻    No  ☒ 

As of March 9,  2016, there were 48,777,934 shares of the registrant’s ordinary shares outstanding.

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting shares of the registrant held by non-affiliates of Trinseo S.A. computed by reference to the closing price of the registrant’s common stock on the New York Stock Exchange as of June 30, 2015 was approximately $307,559,560.  

Documents Incorporated by Reference

Portions of the registrant’s definitive Proxy Statement for the 2016 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Form 10-K are incorporated by reference in Part III, Items 10-14 of this Form 10-K.

 

 

 

 

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This annual report on Form 10-K (“Annual Report”) contains forward-looking statements including, without limitation, statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, projections, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are not statements of historical facts. Forward looking statements may be identified by the use of words like “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “forecast,” “outlook,” “will,” “may,” “might,” “potential,” “likely,” “target,” “plan,” “contemplate,” “seek,” “attempt,” “should,” “could,” “would” or expressions of similar meaning. Forward-looking statements reflect management’s evaluation of information currently available and are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Specific factors that may impact performance or other predictions of future actions have, in many but not all cases, been identified in connection with specific forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. They are neither statements of historical fact nor guarantees or assurances of future performance. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include economic, business, competitive, market and regulatory conditions and the following:

 

We derive many of our forward-looking statements from our operating budgets and forecasts, which are based upon many detailed assumptions. While we believe that our assumptions are reasonable, we caution that it is very difficult to predict the impact of known factors, and, it is impossible for us to anticipate all factors that could affect our actual results. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, or cautionary statements, are disclosed under the sections entitled “Risk Factors”, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”, and “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” in this Annual Report. All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us, or persons acting on our behalf, are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements as well as other cautionary statements that are made from time to time in our other public communications. You should evaluate all forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report in the context of these risks and uncertainties.

We caution you that the important factors referenced above may not contain all of the factors that are important to you. In addition, we cannot assure you that we will realize the results or developments we expect or anticipate or, even if substantially realized, that they will result in the consequences or affect us or our operations in the way we expect. The forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report are made only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

Trinseo S.A.

Form 10-K Annual Report

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2015

Unless otherwise indicated or required by context, as used in this Annual Report, the term “Trinseo” refers to Trinseo S.A. (NYSE: TSE), a public limited liability company (société anonyme) existing under the laws of Luxembourg, and not its subsidiaries. The terms “Company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Trinseo and its consolidated subsidiaries, taken as a consolidated entity and as required by context, may also include our business as owned by our predecessor, The Dow Chemical Company, for any dates prior to June 17, 2010. The terms “Trinseo Materials Operating S.C.A.” and “Trinseo Materials Finance, Inc.” refer to Trinseo’s indirect subsidiaries, Trinseo Materials Operating S.C.A., a Luxembourg partnership limited by shares incorporated under the laws of Luxembourg, and Trinseo Materials Finance, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and not their subsidiaries. All financial data provided in this Annual Report is the financial data of the Company, unless otherwise indicated.

Prior to our formation, our business was wholly owned by The Dow Chemical Company. We refer to our predecessor business as “the Styron business.” On June 17, 2010, investment funds advised or managed by affiliates of Bain Capital Partners, LP (“Bain Capital”) acquired the Styron business and Dow Europe Holding B.V., which we refer to as “Dow Europe,” or, together with other affiliates of The Dow Chemical Company, “Dow,” retained an ownership interest in the Styron business through an indirect ownership interest in us. We refer to our acquisition by Bain Capital as the “Acquisition.”

Definitions of capitalized terms not defined herein appear in the notes to our consolidated financial statements.

In the first quarter of 2015, we completed a rebranding process to change our operating name and legal entities from “Styron” to “Trinseo,” a name that we believe reflects our breadth as a company with broad global reach and a diverse portfolio of materials and technologies.

 

PART I

Item 1.    Business

Business

We are a leading global materials company engaged in the manufacture and marketing of synthetic rubber, latex, and plastics, including various specialty and technologically differentiated products. We have leading market positions in many of the markets in which we compete. We believe we have developed these strong market positions due to our technological differentiation, diverse global manufacturing base, long-standing customer relationships, commitment to sustainable solutions and competitive cost positions. We believe that growth in overall consumer spending and construction activity, increased demand in the automotive industry for higher fuel efficiency and lighter-weight materials, and improving living standards in emerging markets will result in growth in the global markets in which we compete. In addition, we believe our increasing business presence in developing regions such as China, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe further enhances our prospects.

We develop synthetic rubber, latex and plastics products that are incorporated into a wide range of our customers’ products throughout the world, including tires and other products for automotive applications, carpet and artificial turf backing, coated paper and packaging board, food packaging, appliances, medical devices, consumer electronics and construction applications, among others. We seek to regularly develop new and improved products and processes, supported by our intellectual property portfolio, designed to enhance our customers’ product offerings. We have long-standing relationships with a diverse base of global customers, many of whom are leaders in their markets and rely on us for formulation, technological differentiation, and compounding expertise to find sustainable solutions for their businesses. Many of our products represent only a small portion of a finished product’s production costs, but provide critical functionality to the finished product and are often specifically developed to customer specifications. We believe these product traits result in substantial customer loyalty for our products.

We operate our business in two divisions: Performance Materials and Basic Plastics & Feedstocks.  The Performance Materials division includes the following reporting segments: Synthetic Rubber, Latex, and Performance Plastics.  The Basic Plastics & Feedstocks division represents a separate segment for financial reporting purposes and includes styrenic polymers, polycarbonate, or PC, and styrene monomer.  In addition, the Basic Plastics & Feedstocks division includes the results of our two 50%-owned joint ventures, Americas Styrenics LLC, or Americas Styrenics, and Sumika Styron Polycarbonate Limited, or Sumika Styron Polycarbonate. The following chart provides an overview of this organizational structure:

We believe that this organizational structure reflects the nature of our Company by grouping together segments with similar strategies, business drivers and operating characteristics. Our two divisions are of similar size in terms of sales, but have different margin profiles, different strategic focus, different value drivers and different operating requirements.  By organizing in this way, we believe that we can best manage and operate the Company, focusing on accelerating the growth of our Performance Materials division and improving the profitability of our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks division.

Our major products include: styrene-butadiene latex, or SB latex, and styrene-acrylate latex, or SA latex, in our Latex segment; solution styrene-butadiene rubber, or SSBR, lithium polybutadiene rubber, or Li-PBR, emulsion styrene-

butadiene rubber, or ESBR, nickel polybutadiene rubber, or Ni-PBR, and neodymium polybutadiene rubber, or Nd-PBR, in our Synthetic Rubber segment; highly engineered compounds and blends products for automotive end markets, as well as consumer electronics, medical, electrical and lighting, which we collectively call consumer essential markets, or CEM, in our Performance Plastics segment; and PC, polystyrene, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS, and styrene-acrylonitrile, or SAN, in our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment.

We have significant manufacturing and production operations around the world, which allows us to serve our global customer base. As of December 31, 2015, our production facilities included 34 manufacturing plants (which included a total of 80 production units) at 26 sites across 14 countries, including joint ventures and contract manufacturers. Our manufacturing locations include sites in high-growth emerging markets such as China and Indonesia. Additionally, as of December 31, 2015, we operated 11 research and development (“R&D”) facilities globally, including mini plants, development centers and pilot coaters, which we believe are critical to our global presence and innovation capabilities.

We are a global business with a diverse geographic revenue mix and significant operations around the world.

In 2015, we generated net sales of $3,972 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $492.0 million, Adjusted EBITDA excluding inventory revaluation of $550.3 million, and net income of $133.6 million. Additional information regarding Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA excluding inventory revaluation, including a reconciliation of these metrics to net income (loss), is included in Item 7 – Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations.  

Prior to our formation in Luxembourg in 2010, the Styron business was wholly-owned by Dow. On June 17, 2010, we were acquired by investment funds advised or managed by Bain Capital and Dow Europe, which acquired an ownership interest in our parent company and sole shareholder, Bain Capital Everest Manager Holding SCA, which we refer to as our Parent. As of December 31, 2015, Dow Europe held an approximately 6.6% interest in our Parent. We continue to have a significant business relationship with Dow and rely on our agreements with Dow for certain operating

and other services, for the supply of raw materials used in the production of our products and for certain intellectual property rights. See “—Our Relationship with Dow.”

The following chart summarizes our corporate ownership structure as of December 31, 2015.

 

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe we have a number of competitive strengths that differentiate us from our competitors, including:

Leading Positions in Consolidating Markets

We have leading positions in several of the markets in which we compete, including the #1 position in SSBR in Europe and the #1 position in SB latex globally, and we are a leading global producer of plastics products, including polystyrene and PC. We attribute our strong market positions to our technologically differentiated products, the scale of our global manufacturing base, our long-standing customer relationships and our competitive cost positions.

The markets in which we compete are also highly consolidated and have continued to experience further consolidation over the last several years through the business combinations of BASF Group and Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Yule Catto & Co. plc and PolymerLatex GmbH (currently known as Synthomer plc), Omnova Solutions Inc. and Eliokem International SAS and the formation of Styrolution Group GmbH. As a result, from 2005 to 2015, over 580 kMT of production capacity was eliminated in the SB latex markets in North America and Europe, which represented an approximate 30% reduction in production capacity since 2005. In 1990, the top three producers, measured by production capacity, in North America and Europe represented 68% and 49% of estimated regional capacity, respectively. As a result of the capacity rationalizations and consolidations, including those described above, the top three producers in each of North America and Europe represented over 70% of estimated regional production capacity in 2015.

Production capacity has also been reduced in several of our markets, including styrenics products. For example, from 2005 to 2015, the polystyrene industry experienced substantial capacity rationalization with more than 1,500 kMT of annual North America and Western Europe polystyrene capacity being eliminated during this time period, representing a reduction of approximately 25% of the 2005 total capacity in those regions.

Technological Advantage and Product Innovation

Most of our products are critical inputs that significantly impact the functionality, production costs and quality of our customers’ products. Many of our products are also differentiated by their performance, reliability, customization and value, which are critical factors in our customers’ selection and retention of materials suppliers. For example, our advanced SSBR and Nd-PBR technology is designed to reduce a tire’s rolling resistance, resulting in better mileage and fuel efficiency and lower carbon dioxide emissions while at the same time improving the tire’s wet-grip, a measure of braking effectiveness and traction. We believe these are key performance attributes sought by the end user and have become more easily identifiable through the growing adoption of tire labeling requirements by regulatory agencies, including formal adoption by the European Union in late 2012. These attributes also help in meeting European carbon dioxide emissions legislation requirements. Other jurisdictions have adopted or are considering similar legislation, including tire labeling requirements.

Our lightweight plastics materials also allow automotive companies to reduce weight in vehicles by substituting heavier structural parts with our products and thereby improving fuel efficiency for cars. Higher end automotive interior applications have also benefitted from utilizing our technology which has high aesthetic appeal and excellent scratch resistant characteristics. Energy use is also substantially reduced by using our plastic in lighting and other consumer applications.

Through our performance latex portfolio, we offer a variety of products designed to meet the needs of multiple applications, including adhesives, building and construction and composites, road, athletic, and automotive surfaces, technical fabrics and technical papers and boards. Our performance latex products are designed to enhance and improve an application’s mechanical properties, including water, chemical, stain, abrasion or oil resistance, cohesive and adhesive strength, or dimensional stability, flexibility, water impermeability and efflorescence resistance. Using our technological expertise, we typically launch one to two new technologies in our latex segment each year.

Diverse Global Reach with Strong Presence in Emerging Markets

As of December 31, 2015, our production facilities included 34 manufacturing plants (which included a total of 80 production units) at 26 sites in 14 countries, inclusive of joint ventures and contract manufacturers. We believe our diverse locations provide us with a competitive advantage in meeting and anticipating the needs of our global and local

customers in both well-established and growing markets. We have a strong presence in Asia, where we supply custom formulated latex products both for established and new paper mills, as well as a variety of engineered polymers, synthetic rubber and other products that are used in a variety of end-markets.

Long-Standing, Collaborative Customer Relationships

We have long-standing relationships with many of our customers, helping them to develop and commercialize multiple generations of their products. We have won numerous supplier awards across our segments. We believe we have developed strong relationships through our highly collaborative process, whereby we work with our customers, particularly in high-value segments such as SSBR, specialized plastics and performance latex, to develop products that meet their specific needs. As part of this process, we test our products at customer sites and work with customers to optimize and customize our product offerings. As a result of our close collaboration, we have historically achieved a high success rate of retaining customers. In 2015, we sold to approximately 1,350 customers in over 82 countries with no single customer accounting for more than 8.1% of our net sales in 2015.

Attractive Segments and End-Markets

We focus on what we believe are the most attractive segments for our customers’ products, or end-markets, where demand is underpinned by global trends supporting long-term volume growth, improving living standards in emerging markets, fuel efficiency and the increasing use of light-weight materials. We serve customers in a diversified mix of end-markets that we believe generally grow when global gross domestic product, or GDP, increases. Certain key regional markets where we have a strong presence are expected to outperform global growth rates.

We also believe that the relatively modest level of capacity additions that have been announced in the marketplace will contribute to increased demand for our production capacity and products.

Cost Competitive Assets and Raw Material Sourcing

We believe that our assets and raw material procurement provides us with a competitive cost position for our products. Our products are produced on a global scale with well maintained, productive and cost efficient assets. Some of our global facilities are positioned near some of our key customers or markets, while other facilities are located strategically near major integrated petrochemical centers or are co-located at large Dow facilities, where we benefit from receiving certain raw materials supplied to our facilities by pipeline. We also benefit from existing long-term supply contracts for raw materials including ethylene, butadiene, and benzene, which help us maintain consistent supply through varying market conditions.

The presence of some of our facilities on Dow manufacturing sites allows us to leverage Dow’s existing manufacturing infrastructure in an efficient manner, without the need for us to construct our own infrastructure or provide our own related site services. Dow pipelines directly supply raw materials to our facilities in Terneuzen, The Netherlands and Boehlen, Schkopau, and Stade, all in Germany. We share manufacturing infrastructure with Dow at these locations as well as in Midland, Michigan. At certain of our other facilities, we are able to limit the amount of our outbound freight costs as a result of the proximity of several of our facilities, including Dalton, Georgia, and Hamina, Finland, to key local customers.

We also seek to leverage our experience with styrene monomer (also referred to as “styrene”) to achieve the best possible cost position. We produce styrene in world scale facilities located in Terneuzen, The Netherlands and Boehlen, Germany. These assets have operated consistently in the 1st or 2nd quartile for energy and raw material efficiency as compared to other European ethylbenzene styrene monomer units. We also purchase styrene under high volume raw material cost-based contracts leveraging our buying power.

Experienced Management Team

Our executive leadership team averages over 25 years of industry experience, including leadership positions within our business units, and significant public company leadership experience at other chemical companies.

Our Growth Strategy

We believe that there are significant opportunities to grow our business globally and enhance our position as a leading global materials company engaged in the manufacture and marketing of standard, specialty and technologically differentiated emulsion polymers and plastics by executing on the following strategies:

Continue Product Innovation and Technological Differentiation

We intend to continue to address our customers’ critical materials needs by utilizing our technological expertise and development capabilities to create specialty grades, new and sustainable products and technologically differentiated formulations. We believe our technological differentiation positions us to participate in attractive, high growth areas of the markets in which we compete. One such area where we believe we have a technological advantage is enhanced SSBR. Enhanced SSBR technology, which includes later generations of SSBR and functionalized SSBR, is used in the latest generation of performance tires. The market for performance tires is expected to grow at a rate that is 2 to 3 times that of the standard tire market. We continue to devote significant R&D resources to improving and furthering our SSBR technology and our polybutadiene rubber technologies (such Nd-PBR and Li-PBR) in order to remain a leader in this market. For example, we have converted our Ni-PBR production capacity at our Schkopau, Germany facility to the production of a more advanced polybutadiene rubber, Nd-PBR, which is a key material in the latest generation of performance tires, and now are in the process of providing initial production batches and customer trials. Our development efforts are currently focused in large part on continuing to improve the fuel efficiency and performance characteristics of automotive tires.

We are also working with our industry partners, particularly in the automotive, medical devices, lighting and consumer electronics sectors, to develop new advanced plastics with the goal of gaining market share in higher value-added areas of the markets served by our Performance Plastics segment.

As a global leader in SB latex, we also continue to evaluate opportunities to expand our performance latex business by targeting particular end-markets and chemistries where we believe we have a competitive advantage, such as SB performance latex and styrene acrylics. We believe that performance latex accounts for a substantial portion of the total synthetic latex market, but only accounted for 9% of our Latex segment’s net sales in 2015, and we believe that we are well positioned to capture a larger share of this performance latex market.

Strategically Invest in Attractive Segments of the Market

We plan to make strategic capital investments to extend our leadership in select market segments and meet expected growing demand for our products. Our new SSBR production line in Schkopau, Germany began production on October 1, 2012, adding 50 kMT of new capacity. In addition, we repurchased 25 kMT of SSBR production capacity rights at our Schkopau facility from JSR Corporation Tokyo, Wallisellen Branch, effective March 31, 2014, at a significant discount to the estimated cost to build equivalent new capacity. With these two capacity additions, we have approximately doubled our SSBR production capacity.

As part of this strategy, we continue to divest from less attractive segments.  In September 2015, we announced plans to reduce operational costs in our Latex segment by a $5 million run rate in 2016 and to address declines in the coated paper market.  To this end, we closed our Allyn’s Point latex manufacturing facility in Gales Ferry, Connecticut at the end of 2015.

Opportunistically Pursue Strategic Acquisitions to Extend Leadership Positions

We intend to pursue acquisitions and joint ventures that have attractive risk-adjusted returns to extend our leadership positions in what we believe are the more attractive market segments (such as synthetic rubber and performance latex) and geographies for us, including emerging markets. We believe that a long-term trend toward consolidation in our industry will continue, which we expect to create opportunities for us given our scale, broad customer base, and geographic reach.

Continue to Implement Cost Saving Measures and Focus on Cash Flow Generation

We have a proven track record of offsetting fixed cost inflation with cost saving actions, and we continue to seek to identify incremental cost saving opportunities. In recent years, we have launched several company-wide initiatives

intended to further reduce our costs and increase our competitiveness. We have reduced our fixed cost base by almost $100 million since 2011 through a number of cost-saving initiatives such as streamlining production and administrative processes and optimizing logistics. We believe that our current cost structure positions us favorably to compete and grow in the current market environment, and we have ongoing corporate cost saving initiatives intended to realize annual cost savings at or above the rate of fixed cost inflation.

In addition, we continue to focus on cash flow generation through disciplined working capital and capital expenditure management. Following the completion of the SSBR capacity expansion at our Schkopau, Germany facility in 2012, capital expenditures have been reduced from approximately $112 million in 2012 to approximately $55 million in 2013, net of a $6 million and a $19 million government subsidy for SSBR expansion, respectively. Capital expenditures of $99 million in 2014, or only about 2% of sales, included $26 million for the acquisition of 25kMT of SSBR capacity from JSR. Additionally, capital expenditures were $109 million in 2015, or only about 2.7% of sales, and included $24 million related to the implementation of a new enterprise risk management system, expected to be completed in 2016, and the migration of certain of our manufacturing plants to a substitute third party process control technology.  We believe that our maintenance capital expenditures on our current fixed asset base will be in the range of $30 million to $40 million per year over the next several years, which represents less than 1% of our net sales.

Expand and Deepen Our Presence in Emerging Markets

We expect to capitalize on growing demand for our products in emerging markets such as China, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe and increase our local market share by expanding our customer base and extending local capabilities in some of these geographies. We believe that improving living standards and growth in GDP across emerging markets are creating increased demand for our products. We have also added an additional 25 kMT, or 33%, of SB latex capacity at our facility in Zhangjiagang, China, which became operational in the third quarter of 2015. We expect to leverage our existing technology and platforms to make additional investments in emerging markets to address expected increases in demand for our SSBR, performance latex and plastics products in those geographies. For example, we have recently committed to expanding our local performance plastics manufacturing capability in China, allowing us to supply ABS to customers locally in the world’s largest and fastest growing automotive market.  We also expect this growth to occur in the end markets that use our products.

We also expect to leverage our existing technology and platforms to make additional investments in emerging markets to address expected increases in demand for our SSBR, performance latex and plastics products in those geographies with growth prospects.

Segment Overview

The Company operates under two divisions called Performance Materials and Basic Plastics & Feedstocks. The Performance Materials division includes the following reporting segments: Synthetic Rubber, Latex, and Performance Plastics. The Basic Plastics & Feedstocks division represents a separate segment for financial reporting purposes and includes styrenic polymers, PC, and styrene monomer. The table below includes our net sales, operating income (loss), Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin in each of our reporting segments for the year ended December 31, 2015, as well as a description of our major products and end-markets by segment. Until January 1, 2015, the chief executive officer, who is the Company’s chief operating decision maker, managed the Company’s operations under two divisions, Emulsion Polymers and Plastics, which included the following four reporting segments: Latex, Synthetic Rubber, Styrenics, and Engineered Polymers. Our consolidated financial statements and related notes thereto were retroactively recast to reflect this change in reporting segments.

 

 

 

 

 

See Note 19 to our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report for detailed financial data by segment and by geography.

Latex Segment

Overview

We are a global leader in SB latex, holding a strong market position across the geographies and applications in which we compete, including the #1 position in SB latex in Europe with approximately 30% of Europe’s 898 kMT of SB latex capacity and the #2 position in North America with approximately 35% of its 477 kMT of capacity. We produce SB latex primarily for coated paper used in advertising and magazines, packaging board coatings, carpet and artificial turf backings, as well as a number of performance latex applications. In 2015 approximately 45% of our Latex segment’s sales were generated in Europe, 26% were generated in the United States, and the majority of the remaining net sales were in Asia.

We believe that our leading scale and differentiated capabilities in this segment are a competitive advantage that allows us to invest in new formulation capabilities and polymer science. Using our two pilot coating facilities in the United States and Switzerland, we work alongside our customers to develop new products and customer branding. We believe that this capability allows us to capture new business, strengthen our existing customer relationships and broaden our technological expertise. We continue to focus on our lower cost, starch emulsion technologies, which provide customers with similar performance as SB latex but at a cost advantage. We sold a record volume of this technology in 2015 and expect almost 20% volume growth in 2016 as we expand into additional applications and develop additional product offerings.

We believe our development and formulation capabilities contribute to our strong position. Further, we believe our growth prospects in latex are enhanced by our expanding capacity in China. Our strategic plans to meet the growing demand for latex in China’s paper and packaging board industry are ongoing. We believe that certain emerging markets, and in particular China, will contribute a substantial portion of the global growth of the paper and packaging board market segment over the next decade. 

We believe our growth prospects could also be enhanced if the recent trend of industry capacity reduction and consolidation continues. This consolidation trend includes the business combinations of BASF Group and Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Omnova Solutions Inc. and Eliokem International SAS, and Yule Catto & Co plc and PolymerLatex GmbH (currently known as Synthomer plc). We also believe we are well positioned to capture additional share in the performance latex market, which has accounted for a substantial portion of the total synthetic latex market, but only accounted for 9% of our Latex segment’s net sales in 2015.

Our strategy focuses on delivering consistent results by continuing to grow our volumes in Asia, in carpet, and in performance latex and to leverage our cost-advantaged position to minimize volume declines from the overall declines in the coated paper market in North America and Europe. 

Products and End Uses

We are a global leader in the production and marketing of SB latex for coated paper with the #1 position in SB latex in Europe and the #2 position in North America. For coated paper, we primarily manufacture SB latex, a high-volume product that is widely used as a binder for mineral pigments as it allows high coating speeds, improved smoothness, higher gloss level, opacity and water resistance. Typically, SB latex formulations are engineered in close collaboration with customers, and are tailored specifically to optimize finished product properties and production efficiency, and to minimize mill down time. Since SB latex accounts for, on average, approximately 8% of the total production cost for coated paper but is a critical element of the manufacturing process and provides performance characteristics key to the product’s end-use, we believe customers view it as a crucial component of their manufacturing process and typically seek high-quality, reliable producers.

We are also a leading supplier of latex polymers to the carpet and artificial turf industries and offer a diverse range of products for use in residential and commercial broadloom, needlefelt, and woven carpet backings. We produce high solids SB latex, SA latex, vinylidene chloride, and butadiene-methacrylate latex products for the commercial and niche carpet markets. We incorporate vinyl acrylic latex in our formulations for its ignition resistant properties, with the sourcing of vinyl acrylic latex readily available from a number of industry suppliers. SB latex is also used in flooring as an adhesive for carpet and artificial turf fibers.

We also offer a broad range of performance latex products, including SB latex, SA latex, and vinylidene chloride latex primarily for the adhesive, building and construction as well as the technical textile paper market, and have begun to implement the use of starch and associated new chemistries in paper coatings and carpet backing.

Customers

We believe our Latex segment is able to differentiate itself by offering customers value-added formulation and product development expertise. Our R&D team and Technical Services and Development, which we refer to as TS&D, team are able to use our two pilot coating facilities in Switzerland and the United States, three paper fabrication and testing labs in China, Switzerland and the United States, three carpet technology centers located near carpet producers in China, the United States and Switzerland, and two product development and process research centers, one each in Germany and the United States, to assist customers in designing new products and enhancing the manufacturing process. Additionally, our global manufacturing capabilities are key in serving customers cost-effectively, as latex is costly to ship over long distances due to its high water content. We believe that our global network of service and manufacturing facilities is highly valued by our customers.

Many of our major customers rely on our dedicated R&D and TS&D teams to complement their limited in-house resources for formulation and reformulation tests and trials. We seek to capture the value of these services through our pricing strategy. We estimate that approximately half of net sales in this segment relate to contracts that include raw material pass-through clauses. In addition, as paper mills become larger and increasingly sophisticated with higher fixed costs, we believe there is greater demand for custom-formulated latexes. Historically, we have focused on capturing a majority share of new SB latex formulations for startups and major overhauls of existing paper coaters. In carpet applications, our product development expertise also allows us to provide differentiated products to our customers.

Competition

Our principal competitors in our Latex segment include BASF Group, Omnova Solutions Inc., Synthomer plc, and Lin Cham Ltd. In our Latex segment, we compete primarily based on our ability to offer differentiated products, the reliability of our products, the quality of our customer service and the length and depth of our relationships.

Industry Outlook

Certain changes in industry structure have had a beneficial effect for latex producers, driven by industry capacity reduction and consolidation. From 2005 to 2015 industry capacity in North America and Western Europe contracted approximately 30% due to shut downs and consolidations. Key industry events include the business combinations of BASF Group and Ciba Specialty Chemicals and resulting significant capacity reduction, a capacity rationalization by Dow / Dow Reichhold, Omnova Solutions Inc.’s rationalization at its Mogadore facility, the exit of The Lubrizol Corporation from the latex business, Omnova Solutions Inc.’s acquisition of Eliokem International SAS, and Yule Catto & Co. plc’s acquisition of PolymerLatex GmbH (currently known as Synthomer plc).

We also expect recent declines in the demand for coated paper to slow in the developed markets, particularly in Europe, and such declines to be partially offset by growth in emerging markets such as China, as improving living standards generate increased demand for coated paper end products, as well as growth in non-coated paper applications in all regions. Chinese consumption of styrene-butadiene latexes to paper and packaging board markets is expected to grow by an average of over 4% annually through 2020. Declines in the demand for coated paper resulted in efforts by us to rationalize our capacity by closing our Allyn’s Point latex manufacturing facility in Gales Ferry, Connecticut at the end of 2015.

In addition, several historical developments that appeared to have an unfavorable impact at first, including the emergence of substitutes for SB latex in carpet backing applications in North America, have had less of an impact than initially anticipated due to superior SB latex performance, as many customers that we believe have switched to substitute products have switched back to SB latex due to its superior quality. This trend has been bolstered by increased butadiene availability and decreased butadiene cost in recent years. We also anticipate the housing recovery in the U.S. market will benefit our SB latex business through increased demand for carpet backing applications. We believe that if the recent trends of industry capacity reduction and consolidation and increasing demand in emerging markets continue, this will lead to a favorable production environment.

Synthetic Rubber Segment

Overview

We are a significant producer of styrene-butadiene and polybutadiene-based rubber products and we have a leading European market position, providing approximately 70% of Western Europe’s 240 kMT SSBR capacity available for sale, and in synthetic rubber overall. While substantially all of our sales were generated in Europe in 2015, approximately 19% of these net sales were exported to Asia, 7% to Latin America and 9% to North America.

We have a broad synthetic rubber technology and product portfolio, focusing on specialty products, such as SSBR Li-PBR, and Nd-PBR, while also producing core products, such as ESBR. Our synthetic rubber products are extensively used in tires, with approximately 83% of our net sales from this segment in 2015 attributable to the tire market. We estimate that three-quarters of these sales relate to replacement tires. We have strong relationships with many of the top global tire manufacturers and believe we have remained a supplier of choice as a result of our broad rubber portfolio and ability to offer technologically differentiated product and product customization capabilities. Other applications for our synthetic rubber products include polymer modification and technical rubber goods.

Our most advanced rubber technology, SSBR, is a critical material for tires with low rolling resistance, which increases fuel efficiency and improves wet-grip and also leads to better traction and safety characteristics. Our fourth generation functionalized SSBR can improve traction by approximately 45% and rolling resistance by approximately 75% compared to our first generation. We believe our growth prospects are enhanced by increasing demand for high performance tires, which are now more commonly used by automakers as OEM specified tires in their vehicles as a result of regulatory reforms in the EU, Japan and Korea that are aimed at improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. As a result of these and other factors, demand for SSBR is expected to grow substantially faster than global GDP over the next 5 years.

We remain committed to being a technology leader in providing products to the rapidly growing performance tire market, which is expected to grow at approximately 2 to 3 times the growth rate of the standard tire market. Our strategy in this market focuses on developing and commercializing new performance rubber grades and shifting the mix of products we sell toward more differentiated, higher margin products. Consistent with this strategy, we have doubled our production capacity of SSBR since 2012. This additional capacity enabled us to grow our SSBR sales volumes by 14% in 2015. Within our SSBR product family, our sales volume of enhanced SSBR grew 24% in 2015, and now represents 57% of our total SSBR sales volume, up from 38% in 2012. This mix shift has resulted in Adjusted EBITDA margins improving from 16% in 2012 to 20% in 2015.  

In addition, we continue to make investments to grow this segment. In 2014 we purchased an additional 25 kMT of SSBR production capacity rights at our Schkopau facility and in 2015 we completed the conversion of our Ni-PBR line to higher margin Nd-PBR and are currently running trial batches. We also continue to focus on remaining a technology leader in SSBR, providing superior tread properties such as wet grip, low rolling resistance, and reduced noise.

Products and End Uses

Our Synthetic Rubber segment produces synthetic rubber products used in high-performance tires, impact modifiers and technical rubber products, such as conveyor belts, hoses, seals and gaskets. We participate significantly in the European synthetic rubber industry, where tire producers focus on high-performance and ultra high-performance tires and rely heavily on rubber suppliers to provide their supply of rubber, in contrast to North America where tire manufacturers produce most of their required rubber.

SSBR. We sell SSBR products for high-performance and ultra high-performance tire applications. We produce both clear and oil extended SSBR through batch polymerization in our three SSBR production lines. We believe these processes provide leading and technologically differentiated solutions to tire manufacturers.

We believe we are well-positioned to capture additional market share in high-growth, high-performance tire applications and have expanded capacity to meet this anticipated demand. Our new SSBR production line in Schkopau, Germany began production on October 1, 2012, and expanded our SSBR production capacity by 50 kMT. In addition, we repurchased 25 kMT of SSBR production capacity rights at our Schkopau facility from JSR Corporation Tokyo, Wallisellen Branch, effective March 31, 2014, at a significant discount to the estimated cost to build equivalent new capacity. With these two capacity additions, we have approximately doubled our SSBR production capacity for this higher-margin product.

Our synthetic rubber portfolio is anchored by our SSBR technology and further strengthened by our new functionalized SSBR (SSBR engineered to perform specific functions) product offering. Our new product platform is used in the manufacture of high-performance and ultra high-performance tires. In Europe, we expect demand growth for performance tires, which are designed to improve passenger safety, tire longevity and vehicle fuel efficiency, to accelerate due to European legislation that became effective late in 2012.

During the last six years, we have been working closely with major tire producers around the world to develop multiple new SSBR grades, addressing key marketplace needs for improved tire fuel economy, grip, and abrasion characteristics, which we believe will lead to significant demand growth for our rubber products in Europe and around the world. We expect our synthetic rubber product mix to shift to new more advanced SSBR grades (from approximately 8% of total Synthetic Rubber volume sold in 2011 to 27% in 2015) to meet the expected demand growth. In 2015, SSBR represented approximately 58% of total segment net sales.

ESBR. Our ESBR products are used in standard tires, technical goods, and footwear. Our ESBR product portfolio offers tire producers a comprehensive suite of synthetic rubber capabilities. For example, ESBR provides enhanced wet grip to tire treads and strength to the inner liner of tires, allowing the tires to be more easily processed. In 2015, ESBR represented approximately 34% of total segment net sales.

Ni-PBR and Nd-PBR. Throughout much of 2015, we sold Ni-PBR products for use in standard tires, performance tires, technical goods and footwear.  In 2015, Ni-PBR represented approximately 7% of total segment net sales. In November 2015, we completed the conversion of our Ni-PBR production capacity at our Schkopau, Germany facility to the production of a more advanced, higher margin polybutadiene rubber, Nd-PBR, and are currently running trial batches.  Nd-PBR is a key material in the latest generation of performance tires, and will also be sold for use in industrial rubber goods and polymer modification.

Li-PBR. Our Li-PBR is used primarily for our own internal polymer modification applications. Polymer modification is the use of synthetic rubber to improve the impact resistance quality of plastic products. In 2015, approximately 86% of our Li-PBR products were consumed within our Plastics business unit for high impact polystyrene, or HIPS, and ABS production. We make two grades of Li-PBR exclusively for our polymer modification uses. In addition to impact resistance, Li-PBR provides visual surface gloss. In 2015, Li-PBR represented approximately 1% of total segment net sales.

Customers

We maintain deep and long-standing relationships with a large number of multinational customers, including many of the top global tire manufacturers, as well as fast growing Asian tire manufacturers. Our relationships with our top customers, including with our predecessor business operated by Dow prior to the Acquisition, exceed 10 years on average.

Tire producers are the primary customers for our Synthetic Rubber segment. We believe we have remained a supplier of choice given our broad rubber portfolio, including technologically differentiated grades, and our product customization capabilities. The majority of our Synthetic Rubber segment net sales are based on contracts that generally include terms for at least three different rubber product families. In addition, we estimate that approximately 85% of net sales in this segment relate to contracts that include raw material pass-through clauses. Our R&D and TS&D teams use our broad rubber portfolio to develop differentiated specialty products for customers. Once implemented with a customer, these newly-developed specialty products cannot be easily replaced with a competitor’s product. As a result, we believe customers are likely to buy from us throughout the life cycle of specific tire models to avoid high switching costs and prevent repetition of the expensive development process.

Competition

Our principal competitors in our Synthetic Rubber segment include Asahi Kasei Corporation, JSR Corporation, Lanxess AG, Zeon Corporation, Versalis S.p.A and Synthos S.A. In our Synthetic Rubber segment, we compete primarily based on our ability to offer differentiated products, the reliability of our products, the quality of our customer service and the length and depth of our relationships.

Industry Outlook

Our Synthetic Rubber segment participates mainly in the European synthetic rubber industry, where tire producers rely on rubber suppliers, in contrast to North America where tire manufacturers produce most of their required rubber. Rubber suppliers typically manufacture more than one grade of rubber as customers typically require different grades of rubber from a single supplier. Performance tires represent an especially attractive market to rubber producers because they provide substantial value to end customers and the market for performance tires is expected to grow at a rate that is 2 to 3 times that of the standard tire market. Tire manufacturers are expected to continually seek improvements in advanced rubber, which optimizes the combination of fuel economy and wet grip in order to meet EU regulations which set minimum requirements and are being phased in through 2020. Other jurisdictions have adopted or are considering similar legislation and are also beginning to adopt the tire labeling requirements that have become mandatory in Europe since late 2012. In late 2014, the United Nation’s World Forum on Automotive Regulations adopted new internationally harmonized rules, known as Global Technical Regulations (GTR) for passenger car tires applicable in the European Union, China, Canada, India, Japan and Russia. Enhanced SSBR, which includes later generations of SSBR and functionalized SSBR and is used in the new generation of performance tires, is expected to approach 50% of the total SSBR market by 2018. We believe our leadership in the fast growing SSBR segment will position us to perform well relative to the broader industry and anticipate future strong demand from the broader adoption of legislation similar to the EU legislation and the relative performance advantages of our SSBR products.

We believe that demand for enhanced SSBR will grow at a rate of approximately 11% through 2020, outpacing supply, and resulting in an expected increase in industry utilization rates. This anticipated increase in demand is further evidenced by Goodyear’s April 2015 announcement that it will build a new plant in Mexico to meet the growing demand for premium tires.  This announcement indicated that the new plant will supply 6 million tires per year when it opens in mid-2017, and supplements Goodyear’s other initiatives to supply more premium tires, including an initiative to convert standard tire production into premium tire production. 

 

Performance Plastics Segment

Overview

We are a producer of highly engineered compounds and blends for automotive end markets, as well as consumer electronics, medical, electrical, and lighting, which we collectively call consumer essential markets (CEM). Our strategy in this segment focuses on developing differentiated compounds and blends in line with key industry trends, such as light-weighting and improved aesthetics in automotive, increased recycled material content and a push toward LED lighting in CEM.

Our manufacturing facilities are located across Europe, Asia, and North America. We believe that the strategic locations of these facilities combined with close customer collaboration offers us a strategic advantage in serving our customers. More than half of our compounds and blends products are differentiated based on their physical properties, performance and aesthetic advantages. Our history of innovation has contributed to long-standing relationships with customers who are recognized leaders in their respective end-markets. We have established a strong market presence in the global automotive and electronics sector, targeting both component suppliers and final product manufacturers. Our Performance Plastics segment also compounds and blends our PC and ABS plastics into differentiated products for customers within these sectors, as well as into compounds of polypropylene. We have also developed compounds containing post-consumer recycle polymers to respond to what we believe is a growing need for some customers to include recycled content in their products.

We believe growth in this segment is driven by a number of factors, including consumer preference for lighter weight and impact-resistant products and the development of new consumer electronics, increases in LED lighting applications and continuing growth in medical device applications. Additionally, we believe growth is bolstered by sustainability trends, such as the substitution of lighter-weight plastics for metal in automobiles, as well as more energy efficient, glazing solutions.

In 2015, approximately 38% of our Performance Plastics segment’s net sales were generated in Europe, approximately 27% were generated in the United States and approximately 22% were generated in Asia, with the remainder in other geographic regions, including Latin America and Canada.

In automotive end applications, we aim to maintain and develop sustainable, long-standing relationships with industry leaders, taking advantage of our production capacity on four continents to drive OEM platform design wins. In

2015, we experienced growth in key markets, with a 2% increase in volume outside of Latin America, which experienced declines due to lower consumer confidence and higher interest rates. We continue to focus on our strategic plans to grow this segment through both current technologies and expanded offerings for car exteriors and semi-structural applications.

In CEM, sales volume for 2015 was up 9% over 2014, driven largely by the consumer electronics industry in Asia and by significant progress during the year with our lighting customers, including materials for LED housings and lenses.

Products and End Uses

Our Performance Plastics segment consists of compounds and blends and some specialized ABS grades. We have a significant position in PC/ABS blends, which combine the heat resistance and impact strength of PC with the easy to process qualities and resilience of ABS. We believe our ability to offer technologically differentiated products to meet customer needs sets us apart from our competitors, and with our history as a leading innovator in compounds and blends, we have established ourselves as a leading supplier of PC-based products.

For the automotive industry, we manufacture PC blends under the PULSE™ brand, and we innovate collaboratively with our customers to develop performance solutions to meet the industry’s needs, such as removing weight from vehicles. As a result, we are a key supplier of these products to leading automotive companies in North America and Europe, who tend to specify these products on a per car program platform basis, making it difficult to be displaced as a supplier once selected and providing us with relatively stable and predictable cash flows for several years during the production lifecycle. We are also accelerating our development of similar supply capabilities in growing areas such as China.

For the consumer electronics, electrical and lighting and medical device industries, we manufacture our products under the EMERGE™ brand, among others, and we believe that we have substantial growth opportunities in tablets, notebooks, smart phones and other handheld devices, and electrical and lighting and medical device components. In serving these markets, we leverage our polymer and compound technologies to meet increasingly stringent performance requirements along with the aesthetic and color-matching requirements which are crucial characteristics for the products involved. The result is that we are a leading and long-standing supplier to many well-known brands.

Customers

We have a history of innovation in our Performance Plastics segment, and we believe that our focus on differentiated products enhances our growth prospects in this segment. We develop tailored polymer, compound and process solutions for our customers and for end-markets such as consumer electronics, we believe that our ability to work with our customers to quickly and effectively develop product solutions is a key to our success. Our innovation has contributed to long-standing relationships with customers who are recognized leaders in their respective end-markets. We also believe our global facilities are a competitive advantage that allows us to provide customers with consistent grades and position us to strategically serve emerging markets.

Competition

Our principal competitors in our Performance Plastics segment are Covestro AG, LG Chem Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Teijin Limited, Borealis AG, Celanese Corporation, Styrolution Group, and LyondellBasell Industries. In our Performance Plastics segment, we compete primarily based on our ability to offer differentiated products, the reliability of our products, the quality of our customer service and the length and depth of our relationships.

Industry Outlook

We believe that automotive manufacturers will continue the practice of lightweighting vehicles in order to meet increasing fuel efficiency standards, which should increase demand for our compounds and blends products. The plastic content in cars is expected to increase at an average rate of approximately 10% per year from 2014 to 2020. We believe these same trends towards lighter weights and higher performance materials will also impact other key end-markets such as medical devices, lighting and consumer electronics, and demand for our differentiated products in these markets is expected to grow at an average rate of approximately 9% per year from 2015 to 2020.

Basic Plastics & Feedstocks Segment

Overview

Basic Plastics & Feedstocks consists of styrenic polymers, including polystyrene, ABS, and SAN products, as well as PC and styrene monomer, which includes our internal production and sourcing of styrene. We do not anticipate investing in strategic growth initiatives in this segment in the near term. Rather, our strategy for this segment is focused on operational enhancements, margin improvement, and cash generation.

Also within this segment, our 50%-owned joint venture, Americas Styrenics, continues to be a leading producer in North America of both styrene and polystyrene. We have received $125 million in cash dividends from Americas Styrenics during the year ended December 31, 2015. The results of Sumika Styron Polycarbonate, our other 50%-owned joint venture, are also included within the results of our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment. As of the end of 2015, we have not received cash dividends from Sumika Styron Polycarbonate since the first quarter of 2014.

We are a leading producer of polystyrene and ABS, where we focus our efforts on differentiated applications such as the liners and encasements of appliances and consumer electronics including smartphones and tablets. Within these applications, we have worked collaboratively with customers to develop more advanced grades of plastics, such as our HIPS and mABS products. For example, we work with appliance manufacturers around the world to develop improved environmental stress crack resistant products and with our construction sheet customers on smooth ABS. These products offer superior properties, such as rigidity and colorability, and, in some cases, an improved environmental footprint compared to general purpose polystyrene or emulsion ABS. Our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment also serves the packaging and construction end-markets, where we have launched a new general purpose polystyrene product for improved performance in foam insulation applications. Today, we are one of the top 3 polystyrene producers worldwide, providing, either directly or through Americas Styrenics, approximately 20% of Europe’s polystyrene capacity of 2,192 kMT, approximately 4% of Asia’s capacity of 7,921 kMT and approximately 29% of North America’s capacity of 2,579 kMT. In 2015, we also supplied 17% and 15% of the styrene monomer capacity out of 6,022 kMT and 5,455 kMT in North America and Europe, respectively.

Within styrene monomer, we believe there is a current and longer term trend towards higher styrene margins, due to demand growth, an aging industry asset base, and limited new capacity expected over the next five years. Global styrene operating rates were 84% in 2015 and are forecasted to rise to 87% by 2020. These relatively high operating rates can result in periods of elevated margins due to planned or unplanned production outages. For example, approximately 20% of Western European capacity was offline at times during 2015, which, combined with customer restocking in polystyrene derivatives, resulted in increased margins during the year. We believe there is continued potential for periods of elevated, outage-driven styrene margins given that approximately 60% of Western Europe styrene production capacity is greater than 20 years old, and nearly 40% is more than 30 years old. The following chart illustrates historical styrene margins in Western Europe:

The following charts represent historical styrene, benzene, and ethylene prices, as well as styrene margin, over raw materials, which is calculated by subtracting the costs of benzene and ethylene from the sales price of styrene. 

 

 

Source: IHS. Styrene: W. Europe Contract Monthly Market (Delivered W. Europe); Benzene: 50% W. Europe Spot Avg. (CIF NW Europe / Basis ARA) and 50% W. Europe Contract – Monthly Market (FOB/CIF W. Europe); Ethylene: W. Europe Contract – Market Pipeline (Delivered W. Europe). Styrene: NE Asia Avg. Spot Posting (CFR China); Benzene: NE Asia Spot Avg. (FOB S. Korea); Ethylene: NE Asia Spot Avg. (CFR NE Asia). Margin: Styrene less 80% Benzene less 30% Ethylene.

We capture styrene monomer margin through both internally produced and cost-based purchases of styrene. Annually, we produce approximately 600 kilotons of styrene in Western Europe and purchase approximately 300 kilotons of styrene in Asia with cost based economics. With all other inputs remaining equal, a $50 per metric ton change in styrene margins would be expected to impact our annual Adjusted EBITDA by approximately $30 million in Europe and approximately $15 million in Asia.

We are a producer of PC and PC blends, supplying 3% of polycarbonate capacity of 2,413 kMT in Asia through our Sumika Styron Polycarbonate joint venture, and 13% of 1,210 kMT in Europe. In late 2014, we exited the contract manufacturing agreement with Dow at their Freeport, Texas facility. Smaller competitors tend to operate on a regional basis. We have developed a global, multi-tiered marketing approach targeting the tiered suppliers, as well as final product producers, which we believe most effectively addresses our customers’ needs.

We believe our growth prospects in our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment are enhanced by periodic trends of industry capacity reduction and consolidation in Europe and North America, such as the 2011 formation of the Styrolution Group GmbH joint venture combining certain INEOS and BASF Group assets and the prior acquisition of INEOS Nova by INEOS, as well as INEOS’ most recent asset rationalizations in styrene monomer and polystyrene and Styrolution’s recent announcements to close polystyrene plants in the United States and Sweden. We also have a 50% interest in Americas Styrenics LLC, our joint venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, which operates in the North American and Latin American markets and has benefitted from recent positive trends in those markets. We expect further consolidation in certain regions of Asia with numerous producers and low asset utilization, which we believe will create opportunities for us, given our scale and geographic reach. We believe our growth prospects are further enhanced by our established manufacturing footprint in the high economic growth regions of Asia and our focus on attractive end-markets where improving living standards drive demand for growing appliances, building and construction, and consumer electronics markets.

During the second quarter of 2014, the Company announced a planned restructuring within its Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment to exit the commodity market for polycarbonate in North America and to terminate existing arrangements with Dow regarding manufacturing services for the Company at Dow’s Freeport, Texas facility. The Company also entered into a new long-term supply contract with a third party to supply polycarbonate in North

America. These revised arrangements became operational in the fourth quarter of 2014. In addition, the Company has executed revised supply contracts for certain raw materials that are processed at its polycarbonate manufacturing facility in Stade, Germany, which took effect beginning January 1, 2015. These revised agreements facilitated improvements in our results of operations for our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment during 2015.

Our PC business has benefitted and will continue to benefit from higher global utilization rates.  Large capacity additions in 2011 and 2012 by SABIC and other producers decreased industry operating rates to 74% in 2013.  However, continued demand growth, coupled with capacity expansion delays and capacity reductions, have increased global utilization rates to greater than 80%.  This resulted in significantly higher PC margins in 2015.  We expect these higher margins to occur in the future as demand growth is expected to exceed that of supply. A $100 per metric ton change in polycarbonate margins would be expected to result in approximately a $15 million change in our annual Adjusted EBITDA.

In 2015, approximately 66% of sales from our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment were generated in Europe and an additional 28% of sales were generated in Asia.

Products and End Uses

Polystyrene. We are a leading producer of polystyrene and focus on sales to injection molding and thermoforming customers. Our product offerings include a variety of general purpose polystyrenes, or GPPS, and HIPS, which is polystyrene that has been modified with polybutadiene rubber to increase its impact resistant properties. These products provide customers with performance and aesthetics at a low cost across applications, including appliances, packaging, including food packaging and food service disposables, consumer electronics and building and construction materials.

We believe our STYRON™ brand is one of the longest established brands in the industry and is widely recognized in the global marketplace. We believe our R&D efforts have resulted in valuable, differentiated solutions for our customers. For instance, during the early 2000s, we developed an innovative STYRON A-TECH™ family of resins that is an advanced polystyrene product allowing customers to balance key properties such as toughness, gloss, stiffness, flow and cost, and provide combinations of properties that were previously not available with standard HIPS. We believe that over the past decade, this product family has become the industry standard for this application.

Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS). We believe we are a leading producer of ABS in Europe and are one of the few producers with a presence in North America. We produce mABS, a variation of ABS that has lower conversion and capital costs compared to the more common emulsion ABS, or eABS, process, marketed under the MAGNUM™ brand. mABS has similar properties to eABS but has greater colorability, thermal stability and lower gloss. mABS products can be manufactured to stricter specifications because it is produced in a continuous process as opposed to the batch process used in eABS. mABS also has environmental benefits such as waste reduction and higher yields. In addition to our own mABS production capacity, we also license our proprietary mABS technology to other producers.

Primary end uses for our ABS products include automotive and construction sheet. We maintain a significant share of ABS sales into these markets, which we believe is driven by the differentiating attributes of our mABS products, our reputation as a knowledgeable supplier, our broad product mix and our customer collaboration and design capabilities.

Automotive manufacturers have developed innovative solutions in order to meet increasing fuel standards, such as the lightweighting of vehicles. Consequentially, manufacturers have been replacing heavier materials with durable yet lighter materials, such as mABS and polypropylene compounds. We expect this trend to continue, and we believe that our technological capabilities in our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment together with our compounding and blending expertise will help generate future growth opportunities.

Styrene-Acrylonitrile. SAN is composed of styrene and acrylonitrile, which together provide clarity, stiffness, enhanced ability to be processed, mechanical strength, barrier properties, chemical resistance and heat resistance.

SAN is used mainly in appliances, consumer goods and construction sheets, due to its low-cost, clarity and chemical resistance properties. Within our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment, we manufacture SAN under the TYRIL™ brand name for use in housewares, appliances, automotive, construction sheets, battery cases and lighting applications. In addition, TYRIL™ is suitable for self-coloring which adds value in many of these uses.

Polycarbonate.  PC has high levels of clarity, impact resistance and temperature resistance. PC can be used in its neat form (prior to any compounding or blending) for markets such as construction sheet, optical media and LED

lighting. Additionally, PC can be compounded or blended with other polymers, such as ABS, which imparts specific performance attributes tailored to the product’s end-use.

Our products for glazing and construction sheets are marketed under the CALIBRE™ brand name and offer customers a combination of clarity, heat resistance and impact performance. Glazing and construction sheet represents our largest PC application, and is a key growth focus for us. Key end-markets include the construction industry, with additional opportunities for growth with compounded products in the medical device space, consumer electronics and other applications such as smart meter casings that require plastics with enhanced weatherability, ignition resistance and impact performance.

Customers

Our customer centric model focuses on understanding customers’ needs and developing tailored solutions that create value for both parties. For durable applications, we focus our TS&D, R&D and marketing teams on product design engineering initiatives for developing and specifying plastics in the next generation of construction applications, appliances, automotive, and consumer electronics. In non-durable applications, we focus on innovative products that provide clear cost advantages to our customers, serving customers with our cost-advantaged technology and operating excellence. We have leveraged industry-leading product development and technology capabilities to develop long-standing customer relationships with many of our customers, including a number who have purchased from us, including our predecessor business operated by Dow prior to the Acquisition, for more than 20 years. We believe that our global presence is an advantage, allowing us to provide customers with consistent product grades and positioning us to strategically serve growth economies.

Competition

Our principal competitors in our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment are Styrolution Group GmbH, Versalis S.p.A., Total S.p.A., Covestro AG, LG Chem Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Formosa Plastics Corporation, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Company Limited, and Chi Mei Corporation. In our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment, we compete primarily based on our ability to offer differentiated products, the reliability of our products, the quality of our customer service and the length and depth of our relationships.

Industry Outlook

From 2005 to 2015, the polystyrene industry experienced substantial capacity rationalizations by major producers such as BASF Group, INEOS Nova, and others. More than 1,500 kMT of annual North American and Western European polystyrene capacity was eliminated during this time period, representing a reduction of approximately 30% of the 2005 total capacity in those regions. Consistent with the broader industry, we participated in these rationalizations by electing to shut down some of our less cost effective European assets and concentrating production at our most competitive facilities.

In addition to improving profitability through cost rationalizations, the polystyrene industry has also benefited from a number of consolidating activities. A number of our larger competitors have enhanced their platforms via acquisitions and joint ventures, such as the 2011 formation of the Styrolution joint venture combining certain INEOS and BASF Group assets and the prior acquisition of INEOS Nova by INEOS. Global utilization rates are expected to steadily improve as the reduced production capacity serves growing demand in end-markets.

The ABS and styrenics markets have also experienced a number of capacity rationalizations since 2006. These rationalizations, combined with improved end-market demand, have resulted in a substantial improvement in operating rates since the beginning of the global economic downturn. The rise in global operating rates for styrene monomer are driven by limited, if any, investment in new capacity and continued growth especially in large markets like China.

These styrene and polystyrene dynamics will also benefit our 50%-owned joint venture, Americas Styrenics.  The North America polystyrene market is more consolidated than those in Europe and Asia, and Americas Styrenics has approximately 29% of the capacity in the region, at the top of all producers.  Americas Styrenics is focused on optimizing profitability and distributing cash dividends to its parent companies.

Our PC business has benefitted and will continue to benefit from higher global utilization rates. Large capacity additions in 2011 and 2012 by SABIC and other producers decreased industry operating rates to 74% in 2013.  However,

continued demand growth, coupled with capacity expansion delays and capacity reductions, have increased global utilization rates to greater than 80%. This resulted in significantly higher PC margins in 2015.  We expect these higher margins to occur in the future as demand growth is expected to exceed supply.

Our Relationship with Dow

In conjunction with the Acquisition and subsequently, we entered into certain agreements with Dow, including the Second Amended and Restated Master Outsourcing Services Agreement, which was modified on June 1, 2013 (“SAR MOSA”), the Amended and Restated MOD5 Computerized Process Control Software, Licenses and Services Agreement, with Rofan Services, Inc. which was modified June 1, 2013 (“AR MOD5 Agreement”), site and operating services agreements, and supply agreements.

The SAR MOSA provides for ongoing worldwide services from Dow, in areas such as information technology, enterprise resource planning, finance, environmental health and safety, training, customer service, marketing and sales support, supply chain and certain sourcing and transactional procurement services. The term of this agreement runs through December 2020 and which automatically renews for two year periods unless either party provides six months’ notice of non-renewal to the other party. The services provided pursuant to the SAR MOSA generally are priced per function, and we have the ability to terminate the services or any portion thereof, for convenience any time after June 1, 2015, subject to payment of termination charges. Services which are “highly integrated” follow a different process for evaluation and termination. In addition, either party may terminate for cause, which includes a bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding by the other party, for material breach which is not cured, or by Dow in the event of our failure to pay for the services thereunder. In the event of a change of control, as defined in the agreement, Dow has the right to terminate the SAR MOSA.

Under the AR MOD5 Agreement, Dow provides worldwide process control technology, including hardware, software licenses and support services, and related enterprise resource planning services. The AR MOD5 Agreement, with a term through December 2020, may be terminated by either party for cause, which includes a bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding by the other party, for material breach which is not cured by us if we no longer wish to receive maintenance and support for any licensed software; or by Dow if we use the licensed software for any purposes other than Company business. Dow may terminate the maintenance and support terms at any time if we fail to make payments when due and the default is not corrected within 30 days from notice, or upon two years written notice us, if Dow has made the decision not to support the software systems, provided that Dow will use commercially reasonable efforts to assist us in locating and transitioning to an alternate service provider. We have started to move our plants off the AR MOD5 process control technology through a strategic external relationship with ABB Ltd. and have successfully completed five plant conversions to date.  We continue to work through our established schedule for plant conversions off of the AR MOD5 process control technology, which we expect to be completed in 2020.

In addition, we entered into various site services agreements with Dow, which were modified as of June 1, 2013, (the “Amendment Date”) where at Dow owned sites, Dow provides site services to Company. Conversely, we entered into similar agreements with Dow in June 2010, where at Company owned sites, we provide such services to Dow. These agreements cover general services that are provided at specific facilities co-located with Dow, rather than organization-wide services, and include utilities, site administration, environmental health and safety, site maintenance and supply chain. In certain circumstances, the parties may adjust certain prices and volumes. These agreements generally have 25-year terms from the Amendment Date, with options to renew. These agreements may be terminated at any time by agreement of the parties, or, by either party, for cause, including a bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding by the other party, or under certain circumstances for a material breach which is not cured. In addition, we may terminate for convenience any services that Dow has agreed to provide to us that are identified in any site services agreement as “terminable” with 12 months prior notice to Dow, dependent upon whether the service is highly integrated into Dow operations. Highly integrated services are agreed to be nonterminable. With respect to “nonterminable” services that Dow has agreed to provide to us, such as electricity and steam, we generally cannot terminate such services prior to the termination date unless we experience a production unit shut down for which we provide Dow with 15-months prior notice, or upon payment of a shutdown fee. Upon expiration or termination, we would be obligated to pay a monthly fee to Dow, which obligation extends for a period of 45 (in the case of expiration) to 60 months (in the case of termination) following the respective event of each site services agreement. The agreements under which Dow receives services from us may be terminated under the same circumstances and conditions.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, we incurred a total of $244.8 million, $285.2 million, and $306.2 million in expenses under the SAR MOSA, AR MOD5 Agreement, and site services agreements (which include utilities), including $194.1 million, $233.7 million, and $235.1 million, respectively, for both the variable and fixed cost components of the site service agreements and $50.7 million, $51.5 million, $71.1 million, respectively, covering all other agreements.

In addition, upon Acquisition, we entered into two contract manufacturing agreements pursuant to which Dow operates and maintains one of its facilities to produce polycarbonate products for us in Freeport, Texas, and we operate and maintain our SAN facility in Midland, Michigan to produce products for Dow, each for an initial term of up to 25 years from the Acquisition date. These agreements generally have 25-year terms, with automatic renewals for five-year terms unless one party gives notice at least 18 months prior to the end of the period. We may terminate any operational service under the agreements in the event that we experience a production unit shutdown, with 15-months prior notice to Dow, and Dow may terminate the supply of operational services to us in the event of Dow’s permanent cessation of the operation, also with 15-months prior notice. Furthermore, the agreements may be terminated by mutual agreement between the parties, by either party on notice that the other party fails to cure non-performance or if the other party is in material breach of a material obligation under the agreement within certain parameters, or because of either party’s insolvency.

During the second quarter of 2014, the Company announced a restructuring within its Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment to exit the commodity market for polycarbonate in North America and to terminate existing arrangements with Dow regarding manufacturing services for the Company at Dow’s Freeport, Texas facility (the “Freeport facility”). The Company also entered into a new long-term supply contract with a third party to supply polycarbonate in North America. These revised arrangements became operational in the fourth quarter of 2014. Production at the Freeport facility ceased as of September 30, 2014, and decommissioning and demolition began thereafter, with completion in the first quarter of 2015. The Company incurred $7 million in expenses reimbursing Dow for its decommissioning and demolition of this facility.  In addition, the Company executed revised supply contracts for certain raw materials that were processed at its polycarbonate manufacturing facility in Stade, Germany, which took effect January 1, 2015. These revised agreements facilitated improvements in future results of operations for the Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment.

We have also entered into certain license agreements pursuant to which we have obtained exclusive licenses to use certain of Dow’s intellectual property in connection with the Styron business as it was conducted by Dow and non-exclusive licenses to use certain Dow intellectual property, other than patents, with respect to products outside of the Styron business as it was conducted by Dow prior to the Acquisition, subject to certain limitations. While our license rights are sufficient to allow us to operate our current business, new growth opportunities in latex and, to a lesser extent, plastics involving new products may fall outside of our license rights with Dow. Therefore, our ability to develop new products may be adversely impacted by intellectual property rights that have been retained by Dow.

We have entered into long-term supply agreements whereby Dow supplies ethylene, benzene, butadiene, Bisphenol A, or BPA, and other raw materials amounting to approximately 29% of our raw materials (based on aggregate purchase price). The ethylene, benzene and butadiene agreements are each for an initial term of up to 10 years from the closing date of the Acquisition. Our BPA supply agreement with Dow expires in December 2019. These agreements do not contain any specific termination provisions and pricing is generally based on certain standard industry markers with appropriate volume discounts some of which can be negotiated from time to time.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, purchases and other charges from Dow and its affiliated companies (excluding the SAR MOSA, AR MOD5 Agreement, and site services agreements) were approximately $999.4 million, $1,910.8 million, and $2,030.3 million, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, sales to Dow and its affiliated companies were approximately $227.0 million, $343.8 million, and $294.7 million, respectively.

We continue to leverage Dow’s scale and operational capabilities by procuring certain raw materials, utilities, site services, and other information technology and business services from Dow. In connection with the Acquisition, we entered into several agreements with Dow relating to the provision of certain products and services and other operational arrangements. Dow provides significant operating and other services, and certain raw materials used in the production of our products, under agreements that are important to our business. The failure of Dow to perform their obligations, or the termination of these agreements, could adversely affect our operations. See Item 1A—Risk Factors.

Joint Venture Option Agreement

In connection with the Acquisition in 2010, certain of our affiliates entered into the Latex JV Option Agreement with Dow, pursuant to which Dow was granted an irrevocable option to purchase 50% of the issued and outstanding interests in a joint venture to be formed by Dow and our affiliates with respect to the SB latex business in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia and India. On May 30, 2014, our affiliates entered into an agreement with Dow to terminate the Latex JV Option Agreement, Dow’s previous exercise of their option rights, and all other obligations thereunder, in exchange for a termination payment of $32.5 million. This termination payment was made on May 30, 2014, and the termination of the Latex JV Option Agreement became effective as of such date.

Our Joint Ventures

To supplement our business segments, we entered into two strategic joint ventures in order to gain access to local markets, minimize costs and accelerate growth in areas we believe have significant business potential.

Americas Styrenics

Launched in 2008, Americas Styrenics is a 50% / 50% joint venture between us and Chevron Phillips Chemical Company. Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Americas Styrenics has the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell polystyrene in North America and South America, and produces a range of HIPS and GPPS products. We believe the venture has capitalized on the strong relationships and technology leadership of its parent companies to maintain a strong industry presence and pursue developing opportunities. Americas Styrenics has benefitted from industry consolidation and the cyclical recovery in the North American styrenics market.

Sumika Styron Polycarbonate

Sumika Styron Polycarbonate is a 50% / 50% venture with Sumitomo Chemical of Japan. Sumika Styron Polycarbonate has exclusive rights in Japan to manufacture and sell a range of our PC products and facilitates our access to the Japanese PC market. Sumika Styron Polycarbonate’s facility is located in an integrated and efficient manufacturing site, and uses Dow technology and production processes.

Sources and Availability of Raw Materials

Our raw materials group is responsible for the ongoing sourcing and procurement of raw materials for each of our business segments. The professionals leading this group have extensive experience in the petrochemical industry buying, selling, and swapping commodity raw materials. Our raw materials group seeks to implement the most efficient and reliable raw material strategy for our business segments, including maintaining a balance between contracted and spot purchases.  We also produce raw materials for use by our businesses, such as styrene monomer. While Dow provides a significant portion of our raw materials to us pursuant to supply agreements, including ethylene, benzene, butadiene and BPA, we have developed a comprehensive strategy for obtaining additional sources of supply where needed. Our agreements with Dow range from 1- to 10-year terms with, in some cases, an automatic 2-year renewal. Minimum and maximum monthly contract quantities were established based on historical consumption rates, and our pricing terms are based on commodity indices in the relevant geography. We obtained approximately 31% of our raw materials from Dow in 2015 (based on aggregate purchase price).

The prices of key raw materials that we purchase, including benzene, ethylene, styrene, butadiene and BPA, are volatile and can fluctuate significantly from time to time. The predominant drivers of this volatility are the prices of crude oil and natural gas as well as the impact of market imbalances in supply and demand from time to time. We have supply contracts in place to help maintain our supply of raw materials at competitive market prices.

Styrene

In addition to purchasing styrene through long-term strategic contracts and spot market purchases, we produce styrene internally from purchased ethylene and benzene at our own manufacturing sites. These sources provided 40%, 19%, and 41%, respectively, of our supply in 2015. With this mix of purchased and produced styrene, we seek to

optimize our overall costs of securing styrene through efficient logistics, manufacturing economics and market dynamics.

We believe the low steam-to-oil ratios (“S/O”) of our styrene production plants make them highly energy efficient as compared to other players in our industry. This technology also uses proprietary catalyst technology that supports operation in low S/O conditions and enables long runs between turnarounds. In addition, the styrene production process leverages in-house computational fluid dynamic and reaction models to predict catalyst activity over time, at varying operating conditions, to optimize run rates.

Benzene and Ethylene

Benzene and ethylene are two commodity petrochemicals that represent the majority of the raw materials needed for styrene production. In 2015, Dow supplied us with approximately 96% of our benzene requirements and 100% of our ethylene requirements through 10-year contracts that commenced in 2010 and include automatic 2-year renewal provisions. The volume of benzene that we purchase from Dow may vary quarterly based on our needs at the time. Our operations that use benzene and ethylene are connected to Dow’s cracker operations where these raw materials are produced by a supply pipeline that facilitates the efficient delivery of our raw material requirements. We monitor these materials and how changes in their costs impact the styrene supply chain and its downstream derivatives. Our pricing formulae with Dow are based on well-known indices for the region and generally include large buyer discounts.

Butadiene

Butadiene is an important raw material for the Synthetic Rubber and Latex segments. Dow is our largest supplier for this material in Europe where we purchase directly from Dow’s existing butadiene extraction facilities pursuant to the terms of a 10-year contract that commenced in 2010 and includes an automatic 2-year renewal term. Other supply sources in Europe include major producers with contract terms of up to five years at competitive market prices. Supply to North America and Asia are exclusively from other major third party producers via supply contracts. As a large purchaser of butadiene, we believe we can continue to secure the raw material reliably at competitive prices.

 

Bisphenol A

BPA is the major raw material associated with PC production. This raw material is produced by a subsidiary of Olin Corporation and is supplied via pipeline to us through a supply contract in Europe that has an initial term expiring in December 2019. We source BPA for our North American operations and Asian joint ventures from other market participants. We no longer have a need for BPA in North America as of 2015.

Manufacturing

Our Latex segment had 30 production units that are strategically located throughout the world. We believe these facilities have industry leading quality tracking.

We manufacture all synthetic rubber products at one integrated site at Schkopau, Germany. We believe that our synthetic rubber plant compares favorably to average benchmarks across key cost metrics and is one of the more cost-efficient synthetic rubber production sites in Europe.

Our Performance Plastics segment operates on a global basis with compounding operations in Stade, Germany; Terneuzen, The Netherlands; and Hsinchu, Taiwan. We also have strategic compounding agreements in Asia, North America and Europe.

We operate our Basic Plastics & Feedstocks segment on a global basis, including plants in China, our integrated Schkopau, Germany site, and our PC site in Stade, Germany, in close proximity to faster growing regions. We believe that our polystyrene plants compare favorably to benchmarks across key cost metrics. Additionally, we believe our joint venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP, Americas Styrenics, is well-positioned to serve North America and emerging opportunities in South America. We manufacture SAN for Dow under an agreement in our Midland, Michigan facility. We also believe our strategic joint venture with Sumitomo Chemical of Japan, Sumika Styron Polycarbonate, enables us to gain access to an expanded range of geographies and customers.

Technology

Our R&D and TS&D activities across our segments focus on identifying needs in our customers’ end-markets. As part of our customer-centric model, our R&D/TS&D organization interfaces with our sales and marketing teams and directly with customers to determine their product requirements in light of trends in their industries and market segments. This information is used to select R&D/TS&D projects that are value-enhancing for both our customers and us. Our R&D/TS&D activities and capabilities include:

Our R&D facilities support our technological capabilities. In addition to our two SB latex pilot coaters and our product development centers, our Plastics and Emulsion Polymers business units operate “mini plants” in Stade and Schkopau, Germany. These mini plants are used to make samples of experimental products for testing, which we believe is a critical step in our new product development process.

R&D and TS&D costs are included in expenses as incurred. Our R&D and TS&D costs were $51.9 million, $53.4 million, and $49.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, respectively.

Sales and Marketing

We have a customer-centric business model that has helped us to develop strong relationships with many customers. Including periods prior to the Acquisition when our predecessor business was operated by Dow, we have an average length of key customer relationships exceeding 20 years. Our application development, R&D, TS&D, marketing and sales functions work together to define the customers’ needs and develop technologically differentiated solutions that create value for both the customer and us and result in greater customer intimacy. This can be seen most clearly in competitive applications such as coated paper and packaging board, automotive, consumer electronics, and glazing and construction sheet.

Our sales and marketing teams play a key role in realizing this strategy around technologically differentiated solutions. Our sales and marketing initiatives include:

Our sales and marketing professionals are primarily located at our facilities or at virtual offices within their respective geographies. We have approximately 127 professionals working in sales and marketing around the world, along with approximately 71 customer service professionals and we sell our products to customers in over 82 countries.

We primarily market our products through our direct sales force. All of our direct sales are made by our employees in the regions closest to the given customer. Historically, we have focused the majority of our direct sales efforts on large customers and relied on large distributors for sales to smaller accounts. In addition to the key initiatives outlined above, we intend to increase the amount of customers we serve directly.

Information Systems

We use Dow’s Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) software systems to support our operations worldwide. We have the right to use Dow’s ERP software applications and infrastructure under the terms of the SAR MOSA and its related functional statements of work. The SAR MOSA has a current term that expires on December 31, 2020. Under the terms of the SAR MOSA, Dow extends its work processes and the supporting applications and infrastructure for us to use. Under the SAR MOSA, Dow’s work process expertise centers provide the knowledge-base and documentation required for our personnel to follow work process steps and procedures.

We also use Dow’s global data/voice network and server infrastructure for desktop computing, email, file sharing, intranet and internet website access, mainframe and midrange computer access and voice communications. Business software applications are included in the work processes supported under the SAR MOSA. These applications complement a number of our other global ERP applications to provide us with the equivalent of a modern ERP landscape. We use the various ERP applications to manage our day-to-day business processes and relationships with customers and suppliers. In 2015, we embarked on a joint project with Dow to upgrade our legacy ERP environment to the latest version of SAP over the next two years.

Our manufacturing plants use Dow-developed proprietary process control/process automation technology under the AR MOD5 Agreement. We are licensed to use this technology and receive support and spare parts through the expiration of the current term of the agreement on December 31, 2020. While we are not permitted to use this automation technology for new plants or to substantially expand existing plants, we can use other technology solutions for those situations. We are migrating our manufacturing plants off of the AR MOD5 technology to a substitute third-party process control technology from ABB Ltd, a leading supplier of advanced process control systems. For more information on the AR MOD5 Agreement, see —“Our Relationship with Dow”.

Intellectual Property

We evaluate on a case-by-case basis how best to utilize patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to protect our products and our critical investments in research and development, manufacturing and marketing. We focus on securing and maintaining patents for certain inventions, while maintaining other inventions as trade secrets, derived from our customer-centric business model, in an effort to maximize the value of our product portfolio and manufacturing capabilities. Our policy is to seek appropriate protection for significant product and process developments in the major markets where the relevant products are manufactured or sold. Patents may cover products, processes, intermediate products and product uses. Patents extend for varying periods in accordance with the date of patent application filing and the legal life of patents in the various countries. The protection afforded, which may also vary from country to country, depends upon the type of subject matter covered by the patent and the scope of the claims of the patent.

In most industrial countries, patent protection may be available for new substances and formulations, as well as for unique applications and production processes. However, given the geographical scope of our business and our continued growth strategy, there are regions of the world in which we do business or may do business in the future where intellectual property protection may be limited and difficult to enforce. We maintain strict information security policies and procedures wherever we do business. These information security policies and procedures include data encryption, controls over the disclosure and safekeeping of confidential information, as well as employee awareness training. Moreover, we monitor our competitors’ products and, if circumstances were to dictate that we do so, we would vigorously challenge the actions of others that conflict with our patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights.

The technologies we utilize in some of our business lines have been in use for many years (e.g., SB latex and ABS) and a number of our patents relating to such technologies have expired or will expire in within the next several years. As patents expire, or are allowed to lapse, the products and processes described and claimed in those patents become generally available for use by the public. We believe that the expiration of any single patent or family of patents

that is scheduled to expire in the next 3 years would not materially adversely affect our business or financial results. We believe that our trade secrets relating to manufacturing and other processes used in connection with products to which expiring patents relate will continue to provide us with a competitive advantage after the expiration of these patents.

We use trademarks as a means of differentiating our products. We protect our trademarks against infringement where we deem appropriate. In the first quarter of 2015, we completed a rebranding process to change our operating name and legal entities from “Styron” to “Trinseo.”  In support of this rebranding process, we have successfully registered the TRINSEO™ trademark in over 90 countries and have other trademark applications pending.

Dow has either transferred to us or granted perpetual, royalty-free licenses to us to use Dow’s intellectual property that was used by Dow to operate the Styron business prior to the Acquisition. These intellectual property includes certain processes, compositions and apparatus used in the manufacture of our products. In addition to our license rights to use Dow’s intellectual property related to the Styron business, we have obtained licenses to use Dow’s intellectual property to the extent necessary to perform our obligations under the contracts transferred to us in the Acquisition and to use such intellectual property (other than patents) for products outside of the Styron business as it was conducted by Dow prior to the Acquisition, subject to certain limitations. While we believe our license rights with respect to Dow’s intellectual property are sufficient to allow us to operate our current business, new growth opportunities in latex and, to a lesser extent, plastics involving new products may fall outside of our license rights with Dow. Therefore, our ability to develop new products may be impacted by intellectual property rights that have not been licensed to us by Dow. We have the right, with Dow’s cooperation, to directly enforce the patents that are exclusively licensed to us by Dow where infringement is primarily within the scope of our business but nothing obligates Dow to enforce against third parties the intellectual property rights of Dow that are licensed to us on a non-exclusive basis or where the infringement is primarily outside the scope of our business.

Since our formation on June 17, 2010, we have focused our product innovation on the Performance Materials division, including the Synthetic Rubber, Latex and Performance Plastics segments. The intellectual property that we have created since we were a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow is largely in these segments and covers areas such as material formulations, material process technologies and various end-use industrial applications.

Environmental and Other Regulations

Obtaining, producing and distributing many of our products involve the use, storage, transportation and disposal of toxic and hazardous materials. We are subject to extensive, evolving and increasingly stringent national and local environmental laws and regulations, which address, among other things, the following:

Some of our products are also subject to food contact regulations.

We maintain policies and procedures to monitor and control environmental, health and safety risks, and to monitor compliance with applicable state, national, and international environmental, health and safety requirements. In 2015, we issued a Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes our expectations for our suppliers to comply with applicable laws and regulations and encourages them to adhere to the highest principles of environmental responsibility.  We have a strong environmental, health and safety organization. Our environmental, health and safety compliance and management programs benefit from access to certain of Dow’s programs. We are also committed to the American Chemistry Council Responsible Care® Guiding Principles for our global facilities and received third party certification of our Responsible Care® Management System in 2013. We have a staff of professionals who are responsible for environmental health,

safety and product regulatory compliance. Additionally, we have services agreements with Dow to provide environmental, health and safety services for certain of our facilities. We have implemented a corporate audit program for all of our facilities. However, we cannot provide assurance that we will at all times be in full compliance with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. We expect that stringent environmental regulations will continue to be imposed on us and our industry in general.

In 2011, the National Toxicology Program, or NTP, classified styrene as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen”. The classification, confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences, did not take into consideration recent occupational studies of long-term exposures to styrene monomer, which have found no link between styrene and cancer or other serious conditions in humans. The classification did not change how our products are regulated or handled by our customers. Styrene monomer is considered to have low toxicity and is not classified as a carcinogen or mutagen in the EU Nations. We have not seen a significant shift in customer demand away from styrenics products due to this NTP classification. We believe that there are no simple substitutes for our products that can deliver the same performance, quality, safety and cost effectiveness as the current set of products our customers buy from us.  Nevertheless, in March 2015, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, or OHEA, published a notice of intent to list styrene monomer as “known to the state to cause cancer” in humans.  A decision on the listing is not anticipated in the near term.

There has been controversy for a number of years regarding the safety of BPA. A 2012 French ban on food packaging containing BPA was challenged with limited success, although legal proceedings related to this matter still continue. In January 2013, the California OHEA provided notice of proposed rulemaking to adopt a Proposition 65 Maximum Allowable Dose Level of 290 micrograms per day for exposures to BPA based upon authoritative bodies listing mechanism “as known to cause reproductive toxicity.” One of our trade associations, the American Chemistry Council, filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the listing, which was ultimately denied and an appeal is pending. In May 2015, the California OHEA listed BPA as a reproductive toxicant under its expert body listing mechanism, which will go into effect later this year, unless an appeal is filed.  However, even if the listings stand, the levels of BPA in our products are well below this Maximum Allowable Dose Level, and we do not expect this listing will have a material impact on our products or manufacturing operations. Additionally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has reaffirmed its view, based on its most recent safety assessment, that BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods. Also, in January 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued its long-awaited scientific opinion on the safety of BPA for consumers. EFSA’s expert Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Process Aids (CEF) had decided that the publication of new scientific research on BPA in recent years called for a re-evaluation of the chemical. In summary, EFSA concluded “No consumer health risk from Bisphenol A exposure.” EFSA’s comprehensive assessment considered all age groups and examined food and other potential exposure sources.

We have actively responded through direct communication to our customers and employees to address perceptions and concerns regarding the safety and environmental impact of our products. Our industry trade associations, the Styrene Information and Research Center and the American Chemistry Council, as well as many of our customers are also active through political advocacy, media relations, legal action, and scientific and regulatory activities.

Similarly, we remain active in our trade associations, which are engaged to respond to potential health concerns involving BPA, Styrene and other chemicals used in our manufacturing processes.

Sustainability and Climate Change

Our July 2015 Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Report, which is available on our website, provides our most recent sustainability highlights for our products, performance and operations. The report also profiles how our products help our customers improve their own sustainability in areas such as LED lighting, green tires, building insulation, smart meters, life-saving medical devices, and lighter weight vehicles. Also in this report, we noted that 4% of the Company’s global electricity consumption is derived from renewable energy sources, and that, overall, the Company has reduced its energy use by 2% from the prior year.

Chemical Registration

The goal of the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”) is to prevent unreasonable risks of injury to health or the environment associated with the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of chemical substances. Under the TSCA, the Environmental Protection Agency has established reporting, record-keeping, testing

and control-related requirements for new and existing chemicals. During the past several years, efforts have been underway to reform the TSCA and various legislative initiatives have been introduced most recently the Safe Chemicals Act of 2013 and the Chemical Safety Improvement Act. We actively monitor the progress of these and other legislative developments, and anticipate TSCA reforms this year.

Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (“REACH”) is the regulatory system for chemicals management in the EU. It requires EU manufacturers and importers to disclose information on the properties of their substances that meet certain volume or toxicological criteria and register the information in a central database to be maintained by the European Chemicals Agency. We have completed the REACH requirements for registration of high-volume and high-hazard substances that we manufacture in or import into Europe and we are currently on track to complete the remaining implementation requirements by the deadline in 2018. Other jurisdictions have enacted legislation similar to REACH, including China, Japan and Korea. We do not expect that the costs to comply with REACH and similar requirements will be material to our operations and consolidated financial position. We currently do not expect to need to register additional chemicals under REACH until 2018, at which time we will be required to register our low volume chemicals.

Environmental Proceedings

Prior to our separation from Dow, the EPA conducted a multimedia investigation at Dow’s Midland, Michigan sites, including the ABS site that we now operate. The investigation uncovered a number of alleged violations, including of the Clean Air Act’s leak detection and repair program (“LDAR”). LDAR requires chemical and petroleum companies to control fugitive (i.e., non-point source) emissions of hazardous air pollutants that occur from valves, pumps, flanges, connectors and other piping components. We, Dow and the United States executed a consent decree, which was approved by the District Court in Michigan in 2011. The decree provides that Dow will implement an enhanced LDAR program at our ABS facility over a five year period, which is intended to further reduce fugitive emissions at the ABS facility. We are not a defendant in the action, but under the decree, we or any future owner of the affected equipment will be responsible for performing an enhanced LDAR program at the ABS facility should Dow fail to perform. Dow’s failure to perform would subject it to significant stipulated penalties. An implementation agreement has been negotiated between us and Dow, which provides that Dow will bear the costs of the enhanced LDAR program.

Environmental Remediation

Environmental laws and regulations require mitigation or remediation of the effects of the disposal or release of chemical substances. Under some of these regulations, as the current owner or operator of a property, we could be held liable for the costs of removal or remediation of hazardous substances on or under the property, without regard to whether we knew of or caused the contamination, and regardless of whether the practices that resulted in the contamination were permitted at the time they occurred. At our Allyn’s Point, Connecticut property we lease a portion of the property to our joint venture, Americas Styrenics, for its operations, which includes a regulated hazardous waste boiler. Potential liabilities resulting from our owner status are addressed through financial assurance mechanisms and other agreements. Many of our production sites have an extended history of industrial use, and it is impossible to predict precisely what effect these laws and regulations will have on us in the future. Soil and groundwater contamination has occurred at some of the sites, and might occur or be discovered at other sites. Subject to certain monetary and temporal limitations, Dow is obligated to indemnify and hold us harmless with respect to releases of hazardous material that existed at our sites prior to our separation from Dow in June 2010. However, we cannot be certain that Dow will fully honor the indemnity or that the indemnity will be sufficient to satisfy all claims that we may incur. In addition, we face the risk that future claims might fall outside of the scope of the indemnity, particularly if we experience a release of hazardous materials that occurs in the future or at any time after our separation from Dow. Except for minor monitoring activities that we are performing in Livorno, Italy pursuant to an agreement with Dow, we do not currently have any material obligations to perform environmental remediation on our properties, and any active remedial projects on our properties are being performed by Dow pursuant to its indemnification obligations or for any Superfund sites.

Environmental Programs

We have comprehensive environmental, health and safety compliance, auditing and management programs in place to assist in our compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and with internal policies and procedures, as appropriate. We use Dow’s environmental health and safety programs, including a management system, as a cornerstone

of our programs and have contracts in place with Dow for the use of their environmental, health and safety expertise. Each facility has developed and implemented specific critical occupational health, safety, environmental, security and loss control programs. We participate in the chemical industry’s Responsible Care® initiative and have implemented a number of environmental and quality management systems at our facilities. In addition to Responsible Care® Management System certification, the majority of our sites have received ISO 14001 environmental management system certifications. Additionally, our German facilities have received ISO 50001 energy management system certifications.

We have a Board of Directors’ Committee on Environmental Health and Safety and Public Policy. We also have implemented an environmental, health and safety (“EH&S”) organizational structure with executive committee level leadership and dedicated environmental experts. We have an EH&S leader at each of our manufacturing sites who is responsible for environmental, health and safety matters at that site. We also have corporate, regional and facility EH&S leaders, as well as a Product Stewardship Organization that manages day-to-day EH&S issues related to our products and customers. Our Process Safety Organization is dedicated to reducing and eliminating process safety incidents.

Facility Security

We recognize the importance of security and safety to our employees and the community. Physical security measures have been combined with process safety measures (including the use of technology), and emergency response preparedness into integrated security plans. We have conducted vulnerability assessments at our operating facilities in the U.S. and high priority sites worldwide and identified and implemented appropriate measures to protect these facilities from physical and cyber-attacks. Effort and resources in assessing security vulnerabilities and taking steps to reinforce security at our manufacturing facilities will continue to be required to comply with U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and other requirements.

Employees

As of December 31, 2015, we had 2,270 employees worldwide. Nearly 83% of our personnel are located at the various manufacturing sites, research and development, pilot coating, paper fabrication and testing and technology centers. The remaining employees are located at operating centers, virtual locations or geographically dispersed marketing and sales locations. Our Midland, Michigan site is the only U.S. facility with union representation for its approximately 55 hourly operations personnel, and employees at certain of our locations are represented by work councils. We consider relations with our personnel and the various labor organizations to be good. There have been no labor strikes or work stoppages in these locations in recent history.

Available Information

Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, are available free of charge through the Investor Relations section of our website, www.trinseo.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after the reports are electronically filed or furnished with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We provide this website and the information contained in or connected to it for informational purposes only. That information is not part of this Annual Report.  

 

 

 

Item 1A.    Risk Factors

Risks Related to Our Business

Our current level of indebtedness of our subsidiaries could adversely affect our financial condition.

As of December 31, 2015, our indebtedness totaled approximately $1,207.8 million.  This amount included our $300.0 million USD Notes and €375.0 million Euro Notes issued by our subsidiaries.  This amount also included our $496.4 million 2021 Term Loan B issued on May 5, 2015, when our subsidiaries entered into our Senior Credit Facility. 

The Senior Credit Facility also includes our 2020 Revolving Facility. As of December 31, 2015, we had no borrowings and had $311.5 million (net of $13.5 million outstanding letters of credit) of funds available for borrowings under the 2020 Revolving Facility.  Several of our subsidiaries are also party to our Accounts Receivable Securitization Facility, for up to a total of $200.0 million in borrowings. As of December 31, 2015, there were no amounts outstanding, with approximately $123.4 million of funds available for borrowing under this facility, based on the pool of eligible accounts receivable. We are also a party to a short-term revolving credit facility through our subsidiary in China that provides uncommitted funds available for borrowing, subject to the availability of collateral.  We had no outstanding borrowings under this revolving credit facility as of December 31, 2015.

Our level of indebtedness could have important consequences, including:

In addition, a substantial portion of our subsidiaries current indebtedness is secured by substantially all of our assets, which may make it more difficult to secure additional borrowings at reasonable costs. If we default or declare bankruptcy, after these obligations are met, there may not be sufficient funds or assets to satisfy our subordinate interests, including those of our shareholders.

The terms of our subsidiaries’ indebtedness may restrict our current and future operations, particularly our ability to respond to change or to take certain actions. 

The Indenture and the credit agreement governing the Borrowers’ Senior Credit Facility contain a number of covenants imposing certain restrictions on our subsidiaries’ businesses. These restrictions may affect our ability to operate our business and may limit our ability to take advantage of business opportunities. These agreements restrict, among other things, our subsidiaries’ ability to:

The ability of our subsidiaries to comply with the covenants and financial ratios and tests contained in the Indenture and Credit Agreement, to pay interest on indebtedness, fund working capital, and make anticipated capital expenditures depends on our future performance, which is subject to general economic conditions and other factors, some of which are beyond our control. There can be no assurance that our business will generate sufficient cash flow from operations or that future borrowings will be available under our Senior Credit Facility to fund liquidity needs in an amount sufficient to enable them to service their indebtedness. Furthermore, if we need additional capital for general corporate purposes or to execute on an expansion strategy, there can be no assurance that this capital will be available on satisfactory terms or at all.

A failure to repay amounts owed under the 2020 Revolving Facility or 2022 Senior Notes at maturity would result in a default. In addition, a breach of any of the covenants in the 2020 Revolving Facility or Indenture governing our 2022 Senior Notes or our inability to comply with the required financial ratios or limits could result in a default. If a default occurs, lenders may refuse to lend us additional funds and the lenders or noteholders could declare all of the debt and any accrued interest and fees immediately due and payable. A default under one of our subsidiaries debt agreements may

trigger a cross-default under our other debt agreements.  For more information regarding our indebtedness and liquidity, please see Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations—  Indebtedness and Liquidity.

To service our subsidiaries’ indebtedness, we will require a significant amount of cash. If we are unable to execute on our business strategy and generate significant cash flow, we may be unable to service our indebtedness and repay in full the notes at maturity. 

To service their indebtedness, our subsidiaries will require a significant amount of cash. Our ability to generate cash flow and service these debt obligations will depend upon, among other things, our future financial condition and operating performance. These factors depend partly on economic, financial, competitive conditions and on certain financial, business, legislative, regulatory and other factors beyond our control. We may not be able to generate sufficient cash from operations to meet our debt service obligations as well as fund necessary capital expenditures.

If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to fund these debt service obligations, we could face substantial liquidity problems and could be forced to reduce or delay investments and capital expenditures or to dispose of material assets or operations, seek additional debt or equity capital or restructure or refinance our subsidiaries’ indebtedness. We may not be able to affect any such alternative measures on commercially reasonable terms or at all, and, even if successful, those alternative actions may not allow our subsidiaries to meet their scheduled debt service obligations. The Senior Credit Facility and the Indenture governing our 2022 Senior Notes restrict the ability of our subsidiaries to dispose of assets and the use of proceeds from those dispositions and may also restrict our ability to raise debt or equity capital to be used to repay other indebtedness when it becomes due. Therefore, our subsidiaries may not be able to consummate those dispositions or to obtain proceeds in an amount sufficient to meet any debt service obligations then due.

Despite our subsidiaries’ current levels of indebtedness, we may incur substantially more debt, which could further exacerbate the risks associated with our indebtedness.

Although the Senior Credit Facility and the indenture governing our 2022 Senior Notes contain restrictions on the incurrence of additional indebtedness, these restrictions are subject to a number of qualifications and exceptions and the indebtedness incurred in compliance with these restrictions could be substantial. Also, we are not prevented from incurring obligations that do not constitute “indebtedness” as defined in the Senior Credit Facility or the Indenture, such as operating leases and trade payables. If new debt is added to our subsidiaries’ current debt levels, the risks related to indebtedness that we now face could intensify.

Our joint ventures may not operate according to their business plans if we or our partners fail to fulfill our or their obligations, or differences in views among our joint venture partners result in delayed decisions, which may adversely affect our results of operations and may force us to dedicate additional resources to these joint ventures.

We currently participate in two joint ventures and may enter into additional joint ventures in the future. The nature of a joint venture requires us to share control with unaffiliated third parties. If our joint venture partners do not fulfill their obligations, the affected joint venture may not be able to operate according to its business plan. In that case, our results of operations may be adversely affected and we may be required to increase the level of our commitment to the joint venture.

Differences in views among joint venture participants and our inability to unilaterally implement sales and productions strategies or determine cash distributions from our joint ventures may significantly impact short-term and longer term financial results, financial condition and the value of our ordinary shares.

Regulatory and statutory changes applicable to our raw materials and products and our customers’ products could require material expenditures, changes in our operations and could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Changes in environmental, health and safety regulations, in jurisdictions where we manufacture and sell our products, could lead to a decrease in demand for our products. In addition to changes in regulations, health and safety concerns could increase the costs incurred by our customers to use our products and otherwise limit the use of these

products, which could lead to decreased demand for these products. Such a decrease in demand likely would have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Materials such as acrylonitrile, ethylbenzene, styrene, butadiene, BPA and halogenated flame retardant are used in the manufacturing of our products and have come under scrutiny due to potentially significant or perceived health and safety concerns.

The federal Toxic Substances Control Act, or the TSCA, is the primary law in the U.S. governing the manufacture, processing, use and distribution of our chemicals. Among other things, under the TSCA, the EPA has the authority to (i) require testing of chemicals that may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment or are produced in substantial quantities, (ii) undertake pre-market review of, and impose restrictions as appropriate on, new chemicals prior to their commercial production and introduction into the marketplace, (iii) limit or prohibit the manufacture, use, distribution and disposal of existing substances, (iv) impose reporting and record keeping requirements to ensure continued access to new information on chemical substances, and (v) oversee export and import notice requirements. Other chemical control regimes continue to be enacted. The European Union’s REACH was followed by the enactment of similar chemical control laws in countries such as China, Japan, and Korea. These regulatory regimes currently require significant compliance expenditures by us, and changes applicable to our raw materials and products or our customers’ products could require significant additional expenditures by us, or changes in our operations.

Our products are also used in a variety of end-uses that have specific regulatory requirements such as those relating to products that have contact with food or medical device end-uses. We and many of the applications for the products in the end markets in which we sell our products are regulated by various national and local rules, laws and regulations, such as the TSCA. Changes in regulations could result in additional compliance costs, seizures, confiscations, recall or monetary fines, any of which could prevent or inhibit the development, distribution and sale of our products. Changes in environmental and safety laws and regulations banning or restricting the use of these residual materials in our products, or our customers’ products, could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. Failure to appropriately manage safety, human health, product liability and environmental risks associated with our products, product life cycles and production processes could adversely impact employees, communities, stakeholders, our reputation and the results of our operations.

We may be subject to losses due to liabilities or lawsuits related to contaminated land we own or operate or arising out of environmental damage or personal injuries associated with exposure to chemicals or the release of chemicals.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA, and analogous state and foreign laws are designed to address the problems associated with contaminated land, especially inactive and abandoned hazardous waste sites listed on the “National Priorities List”, or NPL. Under CERCLA and similar statutes, the current or former owner or operator of a property contaminated by hazardous substance releases is subject to strict, unlimited, joint, several and retroactive liability for the investigation and remediation of the property, and also may be liable for natural resource damages associated with the releases. We also face the risk that individuals could seek damages for personal injury due to exposure to chemicals at our facilities, chemicals which have been released from our facilities, chemicals otherwise owned or controlled by us, or chemicals which allegedly migrated from products containing our materials. Legal claims and regulatory actions could subject us to both civil and criminal penalties, which could affect our product sales, reputation and profitability.

There are several properties which we now own on which Dow has been conducting remediation to address historical contamination. Those properties include Allyn’s Point, Connecticut; Dalton, Georgia; Livorno, Italy; and Guaruja, Brazil. There are other properties with historical contamination that are owned by Dow that we lease for our operations, including our facility in Midland, Michigan. While we did not assume the liabilities associated with these properties in the U.S., because CERCLA and similar laws can impose liability for contamination on the current owner or operator of a property, even if it did not create the contamination, there is a possibility that a governmental authority or private party could seek to include us in an action or claim for remediation or damages, even though the contamination may have occurred prior to our ownership or occupancy. While Dow has agreed to indemnify us for liability for releases of hazardous materials that occurred prior to our separation from Dow, the indemnity is subject to monetary and temporal limitations, and we cannot be certain that Dow will fully honor the indemnity or that the indemnity will be sufficient to satisfy all claims that we may incur. In addition, we face the risk that future claims might fall partially or fully outside of the scope of the indemnity, particularly if there is a release of hazardous materials that occurs in the

future or at any time after the closing of the Acquisition or if the condition requiring remediation is attributable to a combination of events or operations occurring prior to and after the closing of the Acquisition.

The environmental liabilities at a particular site could increase as a result of, among other things, changes in laws and regulations, modifications to the site’s investigation and remediation plans, unanticipated construction problems, identification of additional areas or quantities of contamination, increases in labor, equipment and technology costs, significant changes in the financial condition of Dow or other responsible parties and the outcome of any related legal and administrative proceedings to which we may become a party. Any increase in liability may be outside the scope of the indemnity provided by Dow, resulting in increased costs payable by us. It is not possible for us to reasonably estimate the amount and timing of all future expenditures related to environmental or other contingent matters. Accruals for environmental matters are recorded by us when it is probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the liability can be reasonably estimated based on current law and existing technologies.

Risks are inherent in the chemical business, particularly risks associated with safety, health and the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Risk Management Program (“RMP”) requires facilities that produce, handle, process, distribute or store certain highly hazardous chemicals to develop a risk management plan and program in the event of an accidental release of such chemicals. RMP also requires facilities to assess potential impacts to off-site populations in the event of a credible worst-case release and to document the policies, procedures, equipment and work practices in place to mitigate identified risks. Similar risk management requirements are imposed under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which contains chemical emergency response planning, accident release and other reporting and notification requirements applicable to our facility. In addition, we are subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Process Safety Management standard, which requires the development of a program to manage workplace risks associated with highly hazardous chemicals. Similar laws apply to many of our international facilities. Failure to comply with such laws could subject us to both civil and criminal penalties, which could affect our product sales, reputation and profitability. We may be subject to claims with respect to workplace exposure, workers’ compensation and other health and safety matters.

Volatility in the cost of the raw materials utilized for our products or disruption in the supply of the raw materials may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our results of operations can be directly affected positively and negatively by volatility in the cost of our raw materials, which are subject to global supply and demand and other factors beyond our control. Our principal raw materials (benzene, ethylene, butadiene, BPA and styrene) together represent approximately 56% of our total cost of goods sold. Volatility in the cost of these raw materials makes it more challenging to manage pricing and pass the increases on to our customers in a timely manner. We believe that rapid changes in pricing also can affect the volume our customers consume. As a result, our gross profit and margins could be adversely affected.

Styrene, a principal raw material purchased and produced by us, is used in the production of polystyrene, ABS, SAN, SB latex and our rubber products and, like its principal raw materials, ethylene and benzene, is subject to a volatile market. The wider the styrene to benzene and ethylene spread, with styrene more than benzene and ethylene, the more profitable it is to produce styrene.

Crude oil prices also impact our raw material costs. Generally, higher crude oil prices lead to higher costs of raw materials, although some raw materials are impacted less than others.

Market volatility also impacts our accounting for our inventories. We use either our cost to us or market price, whichever is lower, with cost being determined on the first-in, first-out (“FIFO”) method. As a result, in periods of rapidly declining cost of inventories, the FIFO impact on our reported earnings may be negative. Similarly, in periods of rapidly increasing cost of inventories, the effects of the FIFO method could skew our results of operations, causing them to appear more positive than the actual results.

If the availability of any of our principal raw materials is limited, we may be unable to produce some of our products in the quantities demanded by our customers, which could have an adverse effect on plant utilization and our sales of products requiring such raw materials.

Butadiene prices may be and in the past have been highly volatile. In some cases, market participants have had difficulty securing their supply. While butadiene supply over the past year has not been limited, this trend could reverse with increases in rubber demand.

Suppliers may have temporary limitations preventing them from meeting our butadiene requirements, and we may not be able to obtain substitute supplies of butadiene from alternative suppliers in a timely manner or on favorable terms. The quantity of butadiene available in any one region is dependent on the raw material inputs and operating rates of the ethylene crackers. Raw material inputs to the crackers (either ethane or naphtha) depend on the flexibility of the cracker to use various feeds and the economics of the available raw materials.

In June 2010, we entered into long-term supply agreements (10 years) with Dow for critical raw materials ethylene, benzene, and butadiene. A five-year BPA contract has been extended until 2020. These raw materials and other less critical materials amount to approximately 29% of our raw materials (based on aggregate purchase price). The remainder is purchased via other third-party suppliers on a global basis. As our Dow contracts and other third-party contracts expire, we may be unable to renew these contracts or obtain new long-term supply agreements on terms comparable or favorable to us, depending on market conditions, which may significantly impact our operations.

In addition, many of our long-term contracts contain provisions that allow our suppliers to limit the amount of raw materials shipped to us below the contracted amount in force majeure circumstances. If we are required to obtain alternate sources for raw materials because Dow or any other supplier is unwilling or unable to perform under raw material supply agreements or if a supplier terminates its agreements with us, we may not be able to obtain these raw materials from alternative suppliers in a timely manner or be able to enter into long-term supply agreements on terms comparable or favorable to us.

Dow provides significant operating and other services, and certain raw materials used in the production of our products, under agreements that are important to our business. The failure of Dow to perform its obligations, or the termination of these agreements, could adversely affect our operations.

Prior to June 17, 2010, we were operated by Dow, which has provided and continues to provide services under certain agreements that are important to our business. For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, purchases from and other charges paid to Dow and its affiliated companies (excluding those under the SAR MOSA AR MOD5 Agreement, and site services agreements) were approximately $999.4 million, $1,910.8 million,  and $2,030.3 million, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, sales to Dow and its affiliated companies were approximately $227.0 million, $343.8 million, and $294.7 million, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, we incurred expenses totaling $244.8 million, $285.2 million, and $306.2 million, respectively, under the SAR MOSA, AR MOD5 Agreement, and site services agreements (which include utilities), including $194.1 million, $233.7 million, and $235.1 million, respectively, for both the variable and fixed cost components of the site service agreements and $50.7 million, $51.5 million, $71.1 million, respectively, covering all other agreements.

We are a party to:

Under the terms of the above agreements, either party is permitted to terminate the applicable agreement in a variety of situations, including in the event of the other party’s uncured material breach, insolvency, change of control or cessation of operations. Should Dow fail to provide these services or raw materials, or should any of the above agreements be terminated, we would be forced to obtain these services and raw materials from third parties or provide them ourselves. Additionally, if Dow terminates agreements pursuant to which we are obligated to provide certain services, we may lose the fees received by us under these agreements. The failure of Dow to perform its obligations under, or the termination of, any of these contracts could adversely affect our operations and, depending on market conditions at the time of any such termination, we may not be able to enter into substitute arrangements in a timely manner, or on terms as favorable to us.

We are party to certain license agreements with Dow relating to intellectual property that is essential to our business. Because of this relationship, we may have limited ability to expand our use of certain intellectual property beyond the field of the license or to police infringement that may be harmful to our business.

In connection with the Acquisition, we acquired ownership of, or in some cases, a worldwide right and license to use, certain patents, patent applications and other intellectual property of Dow that were used by Dow to operate our business segments or held by Dow primarily for the benefit of our business segments, prior to the Acquisition. Generally, we acquired ownership of the intellectual property that was primarily used in our business segments and acquired a license to a more limited set of intellectual property that had broader application within Dow beyond our core business segments. Our license from Dow is perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid, and royalty-free. Furthermore, our license from Dow is exclusive within our business segments for certain patents and patent applications that were used by Dow primarily in the Styron business prior to the Acquisition, subject to licenses previously granted by Dow, and to certain retained rights of Dow, including Dow’s retained right to use patents and patent applications outside of our business segments and for internal consumption by Dow. Our license from Dow relates to polymeric compositions, manufacturing processes and end applications for the polymeric compositions; and is limited to use in defined areas corresponding to our current business segments excluding certain products and end-use application technology retained by Dow. Our ability to develop, manufacture or sell products and technology outside of these defined areas may be impeded by the intellectual property rights that have been retained by Dow, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, we may not be able to enforce, and Dow may be unwilling to enforce, this intellectual property that has been retained by Dow where infringement could also impact our business and competitive position.

Hazards associated with chemical manufacturing could adversely affect our operations.

Due to the nature of our business, we are exposed to the hazards associated with chemical manufacturing and the related storage and transportation of raw materials, products and wastes. These hazards could lead to an interruption or suspension of operations and have an adverse effect on the productivity and profitability of a particular manufacturing facility or on us as a whole. Potential hazards include the following: piping or storage tank leaks and ruptures; mechanical failures; employee exposure to hazardous substances; and chemical spills and other discharges or releases of toxic or hazardous substances or gases. There is also a risk that one or more of our key raw materials or one or more of our products may be found to have currently unrecognized toxicological or health-related impact on the environment or on our customers or employees. These hazards may cause personal injury and loss of life, damage to property and contamination of the environment, which could lead to government fines or work stoppage injunctions and lawsuits by injured persons. If such actions are determined to be adverse to us, we may have inadequate insurance to cover such claims, or we may have insufficient cash flow to pay for such claims. Such an outcome could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our end markets are highly competitive, and we may lose market share to other producers or to producers of other products that can be substituted for our products.

Our industry is highly competitive and we face significant competition from large international producers, as well as from smaller regional competitors. Competition is based on a number of factors, such as product quality, service and price. Our competitors may improve their competitive position in our core end-use markets by successfully introducing new products, improving their manufacturing processes or expanding their capacity or manufacturing facilities. Additionally, increases in the costs of our primary raw materials, such as butadiene and styrene, could allow our competitors to offer products made from more cost effective chemistries. Some of our competitors may be able to drive down prices for our products if their costs are lower than our costs. Some of our competitors’ financial, technological and other resources may be greater than our resources and such competitors may be better able to withstand changes in market condition. Our competitors may be able to respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging technologies or changes in customer requirements. If we are unable to keep pace with our competitors’ product and manufacturing process innovations, our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

In addition, consolidation of our competitors or customers may result in reduced demand for our products or make it more difficult for us to compete with our competitors. If we are unable to successfully compete with other producers of our products or if other products can be successfully substituted for our products, our sales may decline.

Compliance with extensive and evolving environmental, health and safety laws may require substantial expenditures.

We use large quantities of hazardous substances, generate hazardous wastes and emit wastewater and air pollutants in our manufacturing operations. Consequently, our operations are subject to extensive environmental, health and safety laws and regulations at both the national and local level in multiple jurisdictions. Many of these laws and regulations have become more stringent over time and the costs of compliance with these requirements may increase, including costs associated with any capital investments for pollution control facilities. In addition, our production facilities require operating permits that are subject to periodic renewal and, in circumstances of noncompliance, may be subject to revocation. The necessary permits may not be issued or continue in effect, and any issued permits may contain more stringent limitations that restrict our operations or that require further expenditures to meet the permit requirements.

This continuing focus on climate change in jurisdictions in which we operate could result in new, potentially diverging or inconsistent, environmental regulations that may negatively affect us. Additional future regulation of greenhouse gases in the U.S. could occur pursuant to future international treaty obligations, regulatory changes under the federal Clean Air Act or other existing legislation, federal, state or regional adoption of greenhouse gas regulatory schemes, or any combination of the foregoing or otherwise. This could cause us to incur additional costs in complying with any new regulations, which may adversely impact our operations and financial condition.

Compliance with more stringent environmental requirements would likely increase our costs of transportation and storage of raw materials and finished products, as well as the costs of storage and disposal of wastes. Additionally, we may incur substantial costs, including penalties, fines, damages, criminal or civil sanctions and remediation costs, or experience interruptions in our operations for failure to comply with these laws or permit requirements.

Conditions in the global economy and capital markets may adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our products are sold in markets that are sensitive to changes in general economic conditions, such as sales of automotive and construction products. Downturns in general economic conditions can cause fluctuations in demand for our products, product prices, volumes and margins. A decline in the demand for our products or a shift to lower-margin products due to deteriorating economic conditions could adversely affect sales of our products and our profitability and could also result in impairments of certain of our assets.

Our business and operating results were severely affected by the global recession beginning in 2008. We continue to be impacted by turbulence in the credit markets, dislocations in the housing and commercial real estate markets, fluctuating commodity prices, volatile exchange rates and other challenges currently affecting the global economy and our customers. Instability in financial and commodity markets throughout the world has caused, among other things, severely diminished liquidity and credit availability, rating downgrades of certain investments and declining valuations and pricing volatility of others, volatile energy and raw materials costs, geopolitical issues and failure and the potential failure of major financial institutions. In addition, the ongoing sovereign debt crisis affecting various countries in the European Union is creating further uncertainties in the global credit markets. Deterioration in the financial and credit market heightens the risk of customer bankruptcies and delay in payment. We are unable to predict the duration of the current economic conditions or their effects on financial markets, our business and results of operations. If economic conditions deteriorate, our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Production at our manufacturing facilities could be disrupted for a variety of reasons. Disruptions could expose us to significant losses or liabilities.

The hazards and risks of disruption associated with chemical manufacturing and the related storage and transportation of raw materials, products and wastes exist in our operations and the operations of other occupants with whom we share manufacturing sites. These potential risks of disruption include, but are not necessarily limited to:

These hazards could expose employees, customers, the community and others to toxic chemicals and other hazards, contaminate the environment, damage property, result in personal injury or death, lead to an interruption or suspension of operations, damage our reputation and adversely affect the productivity and profitability of a particular manufacturing facility or us as a whole, and result in the need for remediation, governmental enforcement, regulatory shutdowns, the imposition of government fines and penalties and claims brought by governmental entities or third parties. Legal claims and regulatory actions could subject us to both civil and criminal penalties, which could affect our product sales, reputation and profitability. Although we have environmental, health and safety compliance and management systems to reduce potential risks and emergency response and crisis management plans in place, these systems and plans may not address or foresee all potential risks or causes of disruption.

If disruptions occur, alternative facilities with sufficient capacity or capabilities may not be available, may cost substantially more or may take a significant time to start production. Each of these scenarios could negatively affect our business and financial performance. If one of our key manufacturing facilities is unable to produce our products for an extended period of time, our sales may be reduced by the shortfall caused by the disruption and we may not be able to meet our customers’ needs, which could cause them to seek other suppliers. Furthermore, to the extent a production disruption occurs at a manufacturing facility that has been operating at or near full capacity, the resulting shortage of our product could be particularly harmful because production at the manufacturing facility may not be able to reach levels achieved prior to the disruption.

Although we maintain property, business interruption, comprehensive general liability, environmental impairment liability and other insurance of the types and in the amounts that we believe are customary for the industry, we may not be fully insured against all potential causes of disruption due to limitations and exclusions in our policies. While the hazards associated with chemical manufacturing have not resulted in incidents that have significantly disrupted our operations or exposed us to significant losses or liabilities since the Acquisition, there can be no assurances we will not suffer such losses in the future.

We could be subject to changes in our tax rates and the adoption of tax legislation or exposure to additional tax liabilities that may adversely affect our results of operations.

We are subject to taxes in Luxembourg, the U.S., and numerous other foreign jurisdictions where our subsidiaries are organized. Due to economic and political conditions, tax rates in various jurisdictions may be subject to significant change. Our future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, and changes in tax laws or their interpretation, such as interpretations as to the legality of tax advantages granted under the European Union ("EU") state aid rules. Our tax returns and other tax matters are subject to examination by local tax authorities and governmental bodies. We regularly assess the likelihood of an adverse outcome resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for taxes. There can be no assurance as to the outcome of these examinations. If our effective tax rates were to increase, or if the ultimate determination of the taxes owed by us is for an amount in excess of amounts previously accrued, our operating results, cash flows, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Any increase in the cost of natural gas or electricity may adversely affect our results of operations.

We use natural gas and electricity to operate our facilities and generate heat and steam for our various manufacturing processes. Natural gas prices have experienced significant volatility in the past several years. Wide fluctuations in natural gas prices may result from relatively minor changes in supply and demand, market uncertainty, and other factors, both domestic and foreign, that are beyond our control. In addition, natural gas is often a substitute for petroleum-based energy supplies. Future increases in the price of petroleum (resulting from increased demand, political instability or other factors) may result in significant additional increases in the price of natural gas. In addition, electricity prices are generally affected by increases in the price of petroleum. Any increase in the cost of natural gas or electricity could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations.

There is no assurance that we will be able to renew all necessary licenses, certificates, approvals and permits for our operations.

Our operation is subject to various licenses, certificates, approvals and permits in different foreign jurisdictions. There is no assurance that we will be able to renew our licenses, certificates, approvals and permits upon their expiration. The eligibility criteria for such license, certificates, approvals and permits may change from time to time and may become more stringent. In addition, new requirements for licenses, certificates, approvals and permits may come into effect in the future. The introduction of any new and/or more stringent laws, regulation, licenses, certificates, approvals and permits requirements relevant to our business operations may significantly escalate our compliance and maintenance costs or may preclude us to continue with our existing operations or may limit or prohibit us from expanding our business. Any such event may have an adverse effect to our business, financial results and future prospects.

If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal control, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results or prevent fraud.

Effective internal controls are necessary to provide reliable financial reports and to assist in the effective prevention of fraud. Any inability by us to provide reliable financial reports or prevent fraud could harm our business. We must annually evaluate its internal procedures to satisfy the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which requires management and auditors to assess the effectiveness of internal controls. If we fail to remedy or maintain the adequacy of its internal controls, as such standards are modified, supplemented or amended from time to time, we could be subject to regulatory scrutiny, civil or criminal penalties or shareholder litigation.

In addition, failure to maintain adequate internal controls could result in financial statements that do not accurately reflect our financial condition. There can be no assurance that we will be able to complete the work necessary to fully comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or that our management and external auditors will continue to conclude that the Company's internal controls are effective.

Our business involves risk of exposure to product liability claims.

Even though we are generally a materials supplier rather than a manufacturer of finished goods, the development, manufacture and sales of specialty emulsion polymers and plastics by us involve inherent risks of exposure to product liability claims, product recalls and related adverse publicity. While we attempt to protect ourselves from such claims and exposures by our adherence to standards and specifications and in our contractual negotiations, there can be no assurance that our efforts in this regard will ultimately protect us from any such claims. For instance, a customer may attempt to seek contribution from us due to a product liability claim brought against them by a consumer, or a consumer may bring a product liability claim directly against us. A product liability claim or judgment against us could result in substantial and unexpected expenditures, affect consumer or customer confidence in our products, and divert management’s attention from other responsibilities. A successful product liability claim or series of claims against us in excess of our insurance coverage payments, for which we are not otherwise indemnified, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

The insurance that we maintain may not fully cover all potential exposures.

We maintain insurance typical of similarly situated companies in our industry but such insurance may not cover all risks associated with the operation of our business or our manufacturing process and the related use, storage and transportation of raw materials, products and wastes in or from our manufacturing sites or our distribution centers. While

we have purchased what we deem to be adequate limits of coverage and broadly worded policies, our coverage is subject to limitations, including self-insured retentions or deductibles and maximum limits and liabilities covered. Notwithstanding diligent efforts to successfully procure specialty coverage for environmental liability and remediation, we may incur losses beyond the limits or outside the terms of coverage of our insurance policies, including liabilities for environmental remediation. In addition, from time to time, various types of insurance for companies in the specialty chemicals industry have not been available on commercially acceptable terms or, in some cases, at all. We are potentially at additional risk if one or more of our insurance carriers fail. Additionally, severe disruptions in the domestic and global financial markets could adversely impact the ratings and survival of some insurers. Future downgrades in the ratings of enough insurers could adversely impact both the availability of appropriate insurance coverage and its cost. In the future, we may not be able to obtain coverage at current levels, if at all, and our premiums may increase significantly on coverage that we maintain.

We are subject to customs, international trade, export control, antitrust, zoning and occupancy and labor and employment laws that could require us to modify our current business practices and incur increased costs.

We are subject to numerous regulations, including customs and international trade laws, export/import control laws, and associated regulations. These laws and regulations limit the countries in which we can do business; the persons or entities with whom we can do business; the products which we can buy or sell; and the terms under which we can do business, including anti-dumping restrictions. In addition, we are subject to antitrust laws and zoning and occupancy laws that regulate manufacturers generally and/or govern the importation, promotion and sale of our products, the operation of factories and warehouse facilities and our relationship with our customers, suppliers and competitors. If any of these laws or regulations were to change or were violated by our management, employees, suppliers, buying agents or trading companies, the costs of certain goods could increase, or we could experience delays in shipments of our goods, be subject to fines or penalties, or suffer reputational harm, which could reduce demand for our products and hurt our business and negatively impact results of operations. In addition, in some areas we benefit from certain trade protections, including anti-dumping protection and the European Union’s Authorized Economic Operator program, which provides expedited customs treatment for materials crossing national borders. If we were to lose these protections, our results of operations could be adversely affected.

In addition, changes in statutory minimum wage laws and other laws relating to employee benefits could cause us to incur additional wage and benefits costs, which could negatively impact our profitability.

Legal requirements are frequently changed and subject to interpretation, and we are unable to predict the ultimate cost of compliance with these requirements or their effects on our operations. We may be required to make significant expenditures or modify our business practices to comply with existing or future laws and regulations, which may increase our costs and materially limit our ability to operate our business.

We are dependent on the continued service and recruitment of key executives, the loss of any of whom could adversely affect our business.

Our performance is substantially dependent on the performance of our senior management team, including Christopher D. Pappas, our President and Chief Executive Officer, who is also currently acting as our Interim Chief Financial Officer. At this time, we are also actively recruiting for a Chief Financial Officer.  Although we engage in executive succession planning and have entered into agreements with each member of our senior management team that restrict their ability to compete with us should they decide to leave our Company, we cannot be sure that any member of our senior management team will remain with us, or that they will not seek to compete with us in the future. The loss of members of our senior management team or our inability to hire qualified management personnel in a timely manner could impair our ability to execute our business plan and growth strategy, cause us to lose customers and reduce revenue, or lead to employee morale problems and/or the loss of additional key employees.

Fluctuations in currency exchange rates may significantly impact our results of operations and may significantly affect the comparability of our results between financial periods.

Our operations are conducted by subsidiaries in many countries. The results of the operations and the financial position of these subsidiaries are reported in the relevant foreign currencies and then translated into U.S. dollars at the applicable exchange rates for inclusion in our consolidated financial statements. The main currencies to which we are exposed are the euro, the British pound, Chinese renminbi, Indian rupee, Korean won, Brazilian real, and Swedish krona.

The exchange rates between these currencies and the U.S. dollar in recent years have fluctuated significantly and may continue to do so in the future. A depreciation of these currencies against the U.S. dollar, in particular the euro, will decrease the U.S. dollar equivalent of the amounts derived from these operations reported in our consolidated financial statements and an appreciation of these currencies will result in a corresponding increase in such amounts. Because some of our raw material costs are procured in U.S. dollars rather than on these currencies, depreciation of these currencies may have an adverse effect on our profit margins or our reported results of operations. Conversely, to the extent that we are required to pay for goods or services in foreign currencies, the appreciation of such currencies against the U.S. dollar will tend to negatively impact our results of operations. In addition, currency fluctuations may affect the comparability of our results of operations between financial periods.

We incur currency translation risk whenever we enter into either a purchase or sale transaction using a currency other than the local currency of the transacting entity.  From time to time, we enter into foreign exchange forward contracts to hedge fluctuations associated with certain monetary assets and liabilities, primarily accounts receivable, accounts payable and certain intercompany obligations.  However, attempts to hedge against foreign currency fluctuation risk may be unsuccessful and result in an adverse impact to our operating results.  Given the volatility of exchange rates, there can be no assurance that we will be able to effectively manage our currency translation risks or that any volatility in currency exchange rates will not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

We may engage in strategic acquisitions or dispositions of certain assets and/or businesses that could affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity.

We may selectively pursue complementary acquisitions and joint ventures, each of which inherently involves a number of risks and presents financial, managerial and operational challenges, including:

In addition, we may encounter unforeseen obstacles or costs in the integration of acquired businesses. Also, the presence of one or more material liabilities of an acquired company that are unknown to us at the time of acquisition may have a material adverse effect on our business. Our acquisition and joint venture strategy may not be successfully received by customers, and we may not realize any anticipated benefits from acquisitions or joint ventures.

We may also opportunistically pursue dispositions of certain assets and/or businesses, which may involve material amounts of assets or lines of business, and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and liquidity. If any such dispositions were to occur, under the terms of the credit agreement governing our Senior Credit Facility and the Indenture, we may be required to apply the proceeds of the sale to repay any borrowings under our Senior Credit Facility or our 2022 Senior Notes.

Because our business operations are conducted entirely through our subsidiaries and joint ventures, we are largely dependent on our receipt of distributions and dividends or other payments from our subsidiaries and joint ventures for cash to fund all of our operations and expenses.

Trinseo S.A., and its subsidiaries and the issuers of its outstanding debt, Trinseo Materials Operating S.C.A. and Trinseo Materials Finance, Inc., are each holding companies without business operations. Therefore, our revenues are generated through business conducted through other operating subsidiaries and joint ventures. As a result, our subsidiaries’ ability to service their debt or to make future dividend payments, if any, is largely dependent on the earnings of our operating subsidiaries and joint ventures and the payment of those earnings to them in the form of dividends, loans or advances and through repayment of loans or advances from us. Payments to us by our operating subsidiaries and joint ventures will be contingent upon our subsidiaries’ or joint ventures’ earnings and other business considerations. Furthermore, the Credit Agreement governing our Senior Credit Facility and the Indenture for the 2022 Senior Notes does restrict the ability of our operating subsidiaries to pay dividends or otherwise transfer assets to us. In addition, each of our subsidiaries and joint ventures is a distinct legal entity.  Therefore, there may be significant tax and other legal or regulatory developments in the future that may impact the ability of foreign subsidiaries or joint ventures to continue to remit money to us.

Americas Styrenics LLC, which is one of our joint ventures, is among the parties subject to an ongoing government antitrust investigation by the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, and the United States Department of Justice, involving the polystyrene market in North America, the results of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In May 2015, Americas Styrenics, our 50%-owned joint venture, received a subpoena from the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General in coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice (collectively the “Government”) requesting documents regarding its involvement and participation in the market for polystyrene.  The subpoena received by Americas Styrenics does not seek information regarding the market for styrene monomer.  The Government has informed Americas Styrenics that similar subpoenas have been sent to other companies that operate in the polystyrene market.

Under the joint venture agreement, we granted Americas Styrenics the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell polystyrene in North America and South America.  Equity earnings attributable to Americas Styrenics was $135.3 million, $50.3 million, and $39.4 million in 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.  We estimate that the contribution to Trinseo’s equity earnings from Americas Styrenics’ polystyrene business was approximately 55% in 2015, approximately 87% in 2014 and approximately 0% in 2013.  This translates to a contribution from Americas Styrenics’ polystyrene business to Trinseo’s Adjusted EBITDA of approximately 15% in 2015, approximately 17% in 2014 and approximately 0% in 2013.

We understand that Americas Styrenics is fully cooperating with the Government’s investigation and has delivered all requested documents in response to the subpoena.  Further, Americas Styrenics has informed us that it has completed its own internal investigation and is unaware of any improper activity.  We have reviewed the substance of Americas Styrenics’ internal investigation and, based on this information, have no reason to believe any improper activity occurred.  Furthermore, we believe that the industry dynamics present in the polystyrene market are consistent with legitimate competitive market activity and not the result of anti-competitive actions or activity. 

Notwithstanding our current understanding of the facts, this matter remains open with the Government and there can be no assurance that other facts will not come to light that result in Americas Styrenics being determined to have violated applicable law.  As a result, we are unable to make any predictions regarding the ultimate outcome of the investigation.  Other than the subpoena, to date there has been no complaint or demand of Americas Styrenics by the Government regarding the matters that are the subject of the investigation.  In addition, to date we have not been served with a subpoena in connection with this ongoing investigation nor have we otherwise been contacted by the Government or other enforcement authorities.  However, there is no assurance that we won’t be served with a subpoena or otherwise become involved in this investigation in the future.

Based on its findings in the investigation, the Government may (i) close the file, (ii) seek a consent decree to remedy issues it believes violate the antitrust laws, or (iii) file suit against Americas Styrenics for violating the antitrust laws, seeking injunctive or monetary relief. If injunctive and/or monetary relief were granted, depending on its scope, it could affect the manner in which Americas Styrenics’ business is operated and potentially force changes to Americas Styrenics’ business practices or operations.  In addition, Americas Styrenics and its executives could be subject to criminal prosecution and if Americas Styrenics is found to have violated one or more laws, it could be subject to a variety of fines, penalties, and related administrative sanctions and private plaintiffs may seek treble damages. Private plaintiffs may emerge and seek recourse against us, merely as a joint venture owner of Americas Styrenics, and if this investigation continues over a long period of time, it could divert the attention of Americas Styrenics and our management from day-to-day operations and impose significant administrative burdens.  Any of these consequences could damage Americas Styrenics’ and our reputation and impair Americas Styrenics’ ability to conduct its business, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We generally do not have long-term contracts with our customers, and the loss of customers could adversely affect our sales and profitability.

With some exceptions, our business is based primarily upon individual sales orders with our customers. As such, our customers could cease buying our products from us at any time, for any reason, with little or no recourse. If multiple customers elected not to purchase products from us, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We could be subject to damages based on claims brought against us by our customers or lose customers as a result of the failure of our products to meet certain quality specifications.

Our products provide important performance attributes to our customers’ products. If a product fails to perform in a manner consistent with quality specifications, a customer could seek replacement of the product or damages for costs incurred as a result of the product failing to perform as designed and marketed. A successful claim or series of claims against us could cause reputational harm and have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations and could result in a loss of one or more customers.

If we are not able to continue the technological innovation and successful commercial introduction of new products, our customers may turn to other producers to meet their requirements.

Our industry and the end markets into which we sell our products experience periodic technological changes and ongoing product improvements. Our customers may introduce new generations of their own products or require new technological and increased performance specifications that would require us to develop customized products. Innovation or other changes in our customers’ product performance requirements may also adversely affect the demand for our products. Our future growth will depend on our ability to gauge the direction of the commercial and technological progress in all key end markets, and upon our ability to successfully develop, manufacture and market products in such changing end markets. We need to continue to identify, develop and market innovative products on a timely basis to replace existing products in order to maintain our profit margins and our competitive position. We may not be successful in developing new products and technology that successfully compete with these materials, and our customers may not accept any of our new products. If we fail to keep pace with evolving technological innovations or fail to modify our products in response to our customers’ needs, then our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected as a result of reduced sales of our products.

Our business relies on intellectual property and other proprietary information and our failure to adequately protect or effectively enforce our rights could harm our competitive advantages with respect to the manufacturing of some of our products.

Our success depends to a significant degree upon our ability to protect, preserve and enforce our intellectual property and other proprietary information of our business. However, we may be unable to prevent third parties from using our intellectual property and other proprietary information without our authorization or independently developing intellectual property and other proprietary information that is similar to or competes with ours, particularly in those countries where the laws do not protect proprietary rights to the same degree as in the United States. Any inability by us to effectively prevent the unauthorized use of our intellectual property and other proprietary information by others could reduce or eliminate any competitive advantage we have developed, cause us to lose sales or otherwise harm our business. If it becomes necessary for us to initiate litigation to protect our proprietary rights, any proceedings could be burdensome and costly, and we may not prevail.

Any patents we own, or that are exclusively licensed to us, that have been issued or may be issued in the future, may not provide us with any competitive advantage and may be challenged by third parties. Our competitors or others also may seek to oppose or challenge the validity of our pending patent applications or issued patents. Our competitors also may attempt to design around our patents or copy or otherwise obtain and use our intellectual property and other proprietary information. Moreover, our competitors may already hold or have applied for patents in the United States or other countries in which we operate that, if enforced following their issuance, could possibly limit our ability to manufacture or sell one or more of our products in the jurisdictions in which such patents are issued. In general, competitors or other parties may, from time to time, assert issued patents or other intellectual property rights against us. If we are legally determined, at some future date, to infringe or violate the intellectual property rights of another party, we may have to pay damages, stop the infringing use, or attempt to obtain a license of such intellectual property from the owner of such intellectual property. With respect to our pending patent applications, we may not be successful in securing patents for the patent claims we are pursuing. Our failure to secure these patents may limit our ability to protect inventions that these applications were intended to cover. In addition, as our patents expire, or are allowed to lapse, in the coming years, we may face increased competition with consequent erosion of profit margins if we are unable to continue to develop innovations for which we are able to secure new patents or we are unable to effectively protect our know how and innovations as trade secrets.

It is our policy to enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees and third parties to protect our confidential proprietary manufacturing know how, technological innovations, proprietary business information and other trade secrets, but our confidentiality agreements could be breached and may not prevent our manufacturing know how and other trade secrets from being misappropriated by others. Adequate remedies may not be available in the event of an unauthorized use or disclosure of our trade secrets and manufacturing know how. Violations by others of our confidentiality agreements and the loss of employees who have specialized knowledge and expertise could harm our competitive position and cause our sales and operating results to decline as a result of increased competition. In addition, others may obtain knowledge of our trade secrets through independent development or by legal means of access.

We have registered and applied for registration of certain service marks and trademarks, and will continue to evaluate the registration and maintenance of additional service marks and trademarks. We have registered the trademark TRINSEO™ in countries throughout the world and have adopted this trademark as a “house” brand for all of our products. As a general matter with respect to our trademarks, the applicable governmental authorities may not approve our pending applications. A failure to obtain, or maintain, trademark registrations in the United States and in other countries could limit our ability to protect and enforce our trademarks and impede our marketing efforts in those jurisdictions. Moreover, third parties may seek to oppose our applications or otherwise challenge the resulting registrations. In the event that any of our trademarks are successfully challenged, we could be forced to rebrand our products or lose product differentiations that our use of the trademarks has created in the marketplace, which could result in loss of brand recognition or customer loyalty or goodwill and could require us to devote resources to advertising and marketing new brands and the development of new products.

We may be unable to determine when third parties are using our intellectual property rights without our authorization, particularly our manufacturing processes. In addition, we cannot be certain that any intellectual property rights that we have licensed to third parties are being used only as authorized by the applicable license agreement. The undetected, unremedied, or unauthorized use of our intellectual property rights or the legitimate development or acquisition of intellectual property that is similar to or competes with ours by third parties could reduce or eliminate the competitive advantage we have as a result of our intellectual property, adversely affecting our financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to adequately protect our intellectual property and other proprietary information, including our processes, apparatuses, technology, trade secrets, trade names and proprietary manufacturing know how, methods and compounds, through obtaining patent protection, securing trademark registrations and securing our trade secrets through the use of confidentiality agreements of appropriate scope and other means, our competitive advantages over other producers could be materially adversely affected. If we determine to take legal action to protect, defend or enforce our intellectual property rights, any suits or proceedings could result in significant costs and diversion of our resources and our management’s attention. We may not prevail in any such suits or proceedings. A failure to protect, defend or enforce our intellectual property rights could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Our products may infringe the intellectual property rights of others, which may cause us to incur unexpected costs or prevent us from selling our products.

We continually seek to improve our business processes and develop new products and applications. Many of our competitors have a substantial amount of intellectual property that we must continually strive to avoid infringing. Although it is our policy and intention not to infringe valid patents of which we are aware, we cannot provide assurances that our processes and products and other activities do not and will not infringe issued patents (whether present or future) or other intellectual property rights belonging to others, either in the United States. There nonetheless could be third-party patents that cover our products, processes or technologies, and it is possible that we could be liable for infringement of such patents and could be required to take remedial or curative actions to continue our manufacturing and sales activities with respect to one or more products that are found to be infringing. We may also be subject to indemnity claims by our business partners arising out of claims of their alleged infringement of the patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights of third parties in connection with their use of our products. Intellectual property litigation often is expensive and time-consuming, regardless of the merits of any claim, and our involvement in such litigation could divert our management’s attention from operating our business. If we were to discover that any of our processes, technologies or products infringe on the valid intellectual property rights of others, we might determine to obtain licenses from the owners of these rights or to modify our processes or technologies or re-engineer our products in order to avoid infringement. We may not be able to obtain the necessary licenses on acceptable terms, or at all, or be able

to modify our processes or technologies or re-engineer our products in a manner that is successful in avoiding infringement. Moreover, if we are sued for infringement and lose, we could be required to pay substantial damages and/or be enjoined from using or selling the infringing products or technology. Any of the foregoing could cause us to incur significant costs and prevent us from selling our products and could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Data security breaches could compromise sensitive information related to our business, which could adversely affect our business and our reputation.

Cyberattacks or data security breaches could compromise confidential, business critical information or cause a disruption in our operations. We have attractive information assets, including intellectual property, trade secrets and other sensitive, business critical information. We face an ever growing risk of attack from outside our organization (including attack by organized crime, so-called “hacktivists,” and state-sponsored actors) using sophisticated technical and non-technical methodologies (including social engineering and “spear phishing” attacks). We also face risks from internal threats to information security, such as from negligent or dishonest employees or consultants. A successful cyberattack or other breach of security could result in the loss of critical business information and/or could negatively impact operations, which could have a negative impact on our financial results. Furthermore, in addition to using our own systems and infrastructure, we use information systems and infrastructure operated by third-party service providers, including Dow. If our third-party service providers experience an information security breach, depending on the nature of the breach, it could compromise confidential, business critical information or cause a disruption in our operations.

The labor and employment laws in many jurisdictions in which we operate are more restrictive than in the United States. Additionally, we have unionized employees in the United States who may stage work stoppages. Our relationship with our employees could deteriorate, which could have an adverse effect on our operations.

As a manufacturing company, we rely on our employees and good relations with our employees to produce our products and maintain our production processes and productivity. Approximately 85% of our employees are employed outside of the United States. In certain of those countries, such as the member states of the European Union, labor and employment laws are more restrictive than in the United States. In many jurisdictions, the laws grant significant job protection to employees, which subject us to employment arrangements that are very similar to collective bargaining agreements.

In addition, as of December 31, 2015, approximately 16% of our employees in United States are members of a union and subject to a collective bargaining agreement. We are required to consult with and seek the consent or advice of the unions or works’ councils that represent our employees for certain of our activities. This requirement could have a significant impact on our flexibility in managing costs and responding to market changes. Furthermore, there can be no assurance that we will be able to negotiate labor agreements with our unionized employees in the future on satisfactory terms. If those employees were to engage in a strike, work stoppage or other slowdown, or if any of our other employees were to become unionized, we could experience a significant disruption of our operations or higher ongoing labor costs, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

As a global business, we are exposed to local business risks in different countries, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.

We have significant operations in foreign countries, including manufacturing facilities, R&D facilities, sales personnel and customer support operations. As of December 31, 2015, we operated, or others operated on our behalf, 34 manufacturing plants (which include a total of 80 production units) at 26 sites around the world, including in Colombia, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Sweden, China, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan, in

addition to our operations in the United States. Our offshore operations are subject to risks inherent in doing business in foreign countries, including, but not necessarily limited to:

We may not be successful in developing and implementing policies and strategies to address the foregoing factors in a timely and effective manner at each location where we do business. Consequently, the occurrence of one or more of the foregoing factors could have a material adverse effect on our international operations or upon our financial condition and results of operations.

Our operations in developing markets could expose us to political, economic and regulatory risks that are greater than those we may face in established markets. Further, our international operations require us to comply with a number of United States and international regulations. For example, we must comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) which prohibits companies or their agents and employees from providing anything of value to a foreign official, or agent thereof, for the purposes of influencing any act or decision of these individuals in their official capacity to help obtain or retain business, direct business to any person or corporate entity or obtain any unfair advantage. We operate in some nations that have experienced significant levels of governmental corruption. Any failure by us to ensure that our employees and agents comply with the FCPA and applicable laws and regulations in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial civil and criminal penalties or restrictions on our ability to conduct business in certain foreign jurisdictions or reputational damage, and our results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.  

Our quarterly results of operations are subject to fluctuations due to the seasonality of our business.

Seasonal changes and weather conditions typically affect the construction and building materials end markets. In particular, sales volumes for construction and building materials generally rise in the warmer months and generally decline during the colder months of fall and winter. Abnormally cold or wet seasons may cause reduced purchases from our construction and building materials customers and, therefore, adversely affect our financial results. However, because seasonal weather patterns are difficult to predict, we cannot accurately estimate fluctuations in our quarterly construction and building materials sales in any given year. Because of the seasonality of our business, results for any one quarter are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be achieved for any other quarter or for the full fiscal year.

We have unfunded and underfunded pension plan liabilities. We will require current and future operating cash flow to fund these shortfalls. We have no assurance that we will generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy these obligations.

We maintain defined benefit pension plans covering employees who meet age and service requirements. The majority of these plans are located outside the United States. We have minimum funding requirements for these plans, and may elect to make contributions that do not exceed these minimum requirements. Our net pension liability and cost is materially affected by the discount rate used to measure pension obligations, the longevity and actuarial profile of our workforce, the level of plan assets available to fund those obligations and the actual and expected long-term rate of return on plan assets. Significant changes in investment performance or a change in the portfolio mix of invested assets can result in corresponding increases and decreases in the valuation of plan assets, particularly equity securities, or in a change in the expected rate of return on plan assets and could result in a shortfall. In addition, any changes in the discount rate could result in a significant increase or decrease in the valuation of pension obligations, affecting the reported funded status of our pension plans as well as the net periodic pension cost in the following years. Similarly, changes in the expected return on plan assets can result in significant changes in the net periodic pension cost in the following years.

If our goodwill becomes impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to earnings.

We are required to test goodwill for impairment at least annually or earlier if events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable. As of December 31, 2015, we had recorded a total of $31.1 million of goodwill. An adverse change in economic or market conditions, changes in technology, changes in competitive conditions and customer preferences, particularly if such changes have the effect of changing one of our critical assumptions or estimates made in connection with the impairment testing of goodwill could result in a change to the estimation of fair value that could result in an impairment charge to our goodwill. Any such material charges may negatively impact our operating results.

Our ability to obtain additional capital on commercially reasonable terms may be limited.

Although we believe our cash and cash equivalents, together with cash we expect to generate from operations and availability under our Senior Credit Facility, which includes a new revolving facility, provide adequate resources to fund ongoing operating requirements, we may need to seek additional financing to compete effectively.

If we are unable to obtain capital on commercially reasonable terms, it could:

 

 

Risks Related to Our Ordinary Shares

We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the New York Stock Exchange listing rules and, as a result, we qualify for, and will continue to rely on, exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements.

We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the corporate governance standards of the New York Stock Exchange. Under the New York Stock Exchange rules, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements.

As of December 31, 2015, the Company did not have a majority of its board of director consist of independent directors, and our compensation and nominating/corporate governance committees did not consist entirely of independent directors. We intend to continue to utilize some of these exemptions, until we are no longer a controlled

company.   Accordingly, you do not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of the New York Stock Exchange.

As a controlled company our Parent has significant influence over us, which could limit your ability to influence the outcome of key transactions, including a change of control.

As long as our Parent continues to beneficially own more than 50% of the voting power of our ordinary shares, it will be able to direct the election of all of the members of our board of directors and could exercise a controlling influence over our business and affairs, including any determinations with respect to mergers or other business combinations, the acquisition or disposition of assets, the incurrence of indebtedness, the issuance of any additional ordinary shares or other equity securities, the repurchase or redemption of ordinary shares and the payment of dividends. Similarly, our Parent has the power to determine matters submitted to a vote of our shareholders without the consent of our other shareholders, can prevent a change in our control, and can take other actions that might be favorable to it. Even if its ownership falls below 50%, our Parent and its affiliates may continue to be able to strongly influence or effectively control our decisions.

Additionally, certain affiliates of our Parent are in the business of making investments in companies and may acquire and hold interests in businesses that compete directly or indirectly with us. They may also pursue acquisition opportunities that may be complementary to our business, and, as a result, those acquisition opportunities may not be available to us.

We are a Luxembourg company and, as a result, shareholders may have difficulty effecting service of process or litigation against us or our officers and directors and will not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of a company incorporated in Delaware.

We are organized under the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Many of our assets are located outside the United States and some of our directors and officers named in this prospectus reside outside the United States and most of their assets are located outside the United States. As a result, investors may find it more difficult to effect service of process within the United States upon us or these persons or to enforce outside the United States judgments obtained against us or these persons in U.S. courts, including judgments in actions predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. Likewise, it may also be difficult for an investor to enforce in U.S. courts judgments obtained against us or these persons in courts located in jurisdictions outside the United States, including actions predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. It may also be difficult for an investor to bring an original action in a Luxembourg court predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws against us or these persons. Luxembourg law does not recognize a shareholder’s right to bring a derivative action on behalf of a company.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our articles of association and by the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The rights of our shareholders and the responsibilities of our directors and officers under Luxembourg law are different from those applicable to a corporation incorporated in Delaware, or any other state of the United States. Luxembourg law and regulations in respect of corporate governance matters might not be as protective of minority shareholders as the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware or other state corporation laws. Therefore, our shareholders may have more difficulty in protecting their interests in connection with actions taken by our directors and officers or our principal shareholders than they would as shareholders of a Delaware corporation or a corporation incorporated in another state of the United States.

Provisions in our organizational documents and Luxembourg law may deter takeover efforts or other actions, including share repurchases that could be beneficial to shareholder value.

In addition to our Parent’s beneficial ownership of a controlling percentage of our ordinary shares, our articles of association and Luxembourg law contain provisions that could make it harder for a third party to acquire us, even if doing so might be beneficial to our shareholders. These provisions include a staggered board of directors, the ability of the board of directors to approve a merger or other acquisition and to issue additional ordinary shares without shareholder approval that could be used to dilute a potential hostile acquirer. As a result, you may lose your ability to sell your ordinary shares for a price in excess of the prevailing market price due to these protective measures, and efforts by shareholders to change the direction or management of the company may be unsuccessful.

Pursuant to Luxembourg corporate law, existing shareholders are generally entitled to preemptive subscription rights in the event of capital increases and issues of shares against cash contributions. However, our board of directors is authorized to waive, limit or suppress such pre-emptive subscription rights until May 13, 2019.  Furthermore, our shareholders may renew, expand or amend this authorization, which could result in the extension of the waiver beyond the initial five year period, at a future general meeting of shareholders.

In addition, our board of directors is authorized to acquire and sell issued ordinary shares subject to certain price and ownership restrictions until May 14, 2019.  At a future general meeting of our shareholders, our shareholders may renew, expand or amend this authorization. These limitations on share repurchases may have the effect of limiting the terms and duration of any potential share repurchase program or other repurchase transaction.

Your percentage ownership in us may be diluted by future equity issuances, which could reduce your influence over matters on which shareholders vote.

Our board of directors has the authority, without action or vote of our shareholders, to issue all or any part of our authorized but unissued ordinary shares, including shares issuable upon the exercise of options. Issuances of ordinary shares would reduce your influence over matters on which our shareholders vote and, in the case of issuances of preferred stock, would likely result in your interest in us being subject to the prior rights of holders of that preferred stock.

Because Luxembourg law places certain restrictions on our ability to pay dividends and make other cash distributions to shareholders, you may not receive any return on investment unless you sell your ordinary shares for a price greater than that which you paid for it.

Under Luxembourg law, cash dividends must be paid from statutory accounting profits and approved by shareholders.  Trinseo S.A. does not have statutory accounting profits as a holding company without operations. Additionally, cash distributions may be made to shareholders through the repayment of shareholder equity.  The board of directors’ authority to make such repayments of equity is subject to shareholder approval.  Equity repayments are utilizing Trinseo S.A.’s distributable reserves, which is generally its statutory share premium less minimum legal reserves.

Even if shareholder approvals are received and statutory requirements are satisfied to pay dividends or make other cash distributions, we may retain future earnings, if any, for future operations, expansion and debt repayment. Any decision to declare and pay dividends or make other distributions to shareholders, including the repayment of shareholder equity, in the future will be made at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition, cash requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant. Even if the board chooses to pay a dividend or make a cash distribution to shareholders, it does not guarantee it will continue to do so in the future. As a result, you may not receive any return on an investment in our ordinary shares unless you sell our ordinary shares for a price greater than that which you paid for them.  

Item 1B.    Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

 Item 2.    Properties 

We own and operate 62 production units at 18 sites around the world. In addition, we source products from another 16 production units at 8 joint venture sites and two production units at a Dow site. We also own or lease other properties, including office buildings, warehouses, research and development facilities, testing facilities and sales offices.

The following table sets forth a list of our principal offices, production sites and other facilities as of December 31, 2015.

 

 

*Shared site with Americas Styrenics. Our Allyn’s Point latex production site was closed at the end of 2015.

**Facility co-located with Dow facilities under ground lease agreements. Plant facilities are owned by us.

+Facility located on property owned by the applicable government.

++Facility located on property under certification with right to build.

 

We believe that our properties and equipment are generally in good operating condition and are adequate for our present needs. Production capacity at our sites can vary depending upon product mix and operating conditions.

Our global production facilities are certified to ISO 9001 standards. Our manufacturing facilities have established reliability and maintenance programs and leverage production between sites to maximize efficiency.

All plants have similar layouts, technology and manufacturing processes, based on the product being manufactured. We believe this global uniformity creates a key competitive advantage for us, and helps lower overall operating costs.

Item 3.    Legal Proceedings 

From time to time we may be subject to various legal claims and proceedings incidental to the normal conduct of business, relating to such matters as product liability, antitrust, competition, waste disposal practices, release of chemicals into the environment and other matters that may arise in the ordinary course of our business. We currently believe that there is no litigation pending that is likely to have a material adverse effect on our business. Regardless of the outcome, legal proceedings can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.

Item 4.    Mine Safety Disclosures 

Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5.Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters, and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities 

Market Information

Our ordinary shares have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, under the ticker symbol “TSE” since June 12, 2014. Prior to that time there was no public market for our ordinary shares. The closing price of our ordinary shares, as reported by the NYSE, on March 9, 2016 was $34.58. The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices per share of our ordinary shares, as reported by the NYSE, for the full quarterly periods indicated.

 

 

Holders

As of March 9, 2016, there were 2 holders of our ordinary shares and approximately 48,777,934 ordinary shares issued and outstanding. By including persons holding shares in broker accounts under street names, however, we estimate we have approximately 4,500 beneficial holders.  

Dividends

In the last two fiscal years we have not declared or paid dividends or other cash distributions on our ordinary shares. Instead, we have retained earnings to fund the development and growth of our business and to repay indebtedness.   Payment of dividends on our ordinary shares is subject to the determination and declaration by our board of directors, and under Luxembourg law the approval of our shareholders. Luxembourg law also limits the amounts that may be distributed to our shareholders.  Under Luxembourg law, cash dividends must be paid from statutory accounting profits and approved by shareholders.  Trinseo S.A. does not have statutory accounting profits as a holding company without operations.

Luxembourg law also permits cash distributions to shareholders through the repayment of shareholder equity.  The amount of this distribution may not cause the annual non-consolidated statutory net assets of Trinseo S.A. to fall below the aggregate of its issued and subscribed share capital and legal reserves. We are considering requesting from our shareholders the authority for our board of directors to make equity repayments at our next annual meeting.  Nevertheless, even if we receive this authorization from our shareholders, it does not require that our board of directors declare and make an equity repayment, or guarantee that they will do so in the future. 

Because we are a holding company, our ability to pay dividends on our ordinary shares is also limited by restrictions on the ability of our subsidiaries to pay dividends or make distributions to us, including restrictions under the terms of the Credit Agreement governing our subsidiaries’ indebtedness. At this time, these restrictions are not material and there is sufficient capacity under existing restricted payment criteria under the Senior Credit Facility and Indenture to meet our anticipated requirements should the Company elect to declare dividends or another cash distribution to

shareholders.  Additionally, our subsidiaries are located in a variety of jurisdictions, so we can give no assurances that our subsidiaries will not face future transfer restrictions due to regulatory changes or other reasons beyond our control.

Any future determination to pay dividends or make other distributions to our shareholders will be at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to compliance with covenants in current and future agreements governing our indebtedness and applicable Luxembourg law, and will depend upon our results of operations, financial condition, capital requirements and other factors that our board of directors deems relevant. Further discussion of these restrictions is included in Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations.   

 

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

Summary Equity Compensation Plan Information Table

The following table sets forth certain information as of December 31, 2015 with respect to compensation plans under which ordinary shares of the Company may be issued.

 

 

 

Performance Graph

The following performance graph reflects the comparative changes in the value from June 12, 2014, the first trading day of our ordinary shares on the NYSE, through December 31, 2015, assuming an initial investment of $100 and the reinvestment of dividends, if any, in (1) our ordinary shares, (2) the S&P 500 Index, and (3) the S&P Small Cap 600 Chemicals Index. The share price performance shown in the graph is not necessarily indicative of future price performance.

 

 

Luxembourg Tax Considerations

Tax Regime Applicable to Capital Gains Realized Upon Disposal of Shares

The following is a summary discussion of the material Luxembourg tax considerations of the acquisition, ownership and disposition of your ordinary shares that may be applicable to you. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed to be, legal or tax advice. This discussion is based on Luxembourg laws and regulations as they stand on the date of this  report and is subject to any change in law or regulations or changes in interpretation or application thereof (and which may possibly have a retroactive effect). Investors should therefore consult their own professional advisers as to the effects of state, local or foreign laws and regulations, including Luxembourg tax law and regulations, to which they may be subject. As used herein, a “Luxembourg individual” means an individual resident in Luxembourg who is subject to personal income tax (impôt sur le revenu) on his or her worldwide income from Luxembourg or foreign sources, and a “Luxembourg corporate holder” means a company (that is, a fully taxable collectivité within the meaning of Article 159 of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law) resident in Luxembourg subject to corporate income tax (impôt sur le revenu des collectivités) on its worldwide income from Luxembourg or foreign sources. For purposes of this discussion, Luxembourg individuals and Luxembourg corporate holders of our ordinary shares are collectively referred to as “Luxembourg Holders.” A “non-Luxembourg Holder” means any investor in our ordinary shares other than a Luxembourg Holder.

Luxembourg individual holders. For Luxembourg individuals holding (together, directly or indirectly, with his or her spouse or civil partner or minor children) 10% or less of the share capital of Trinseo, capital gains will only be taxable if they are realized on a sale of shares, which takes place before their acquisition or within the first six months following their acquisition. The capital gain or liquidation proceeds will be taxed at progressive income tax rates (ranging from 0 to 50.0% in 2015).

For Luxembourg individuals holding (together with his/her spouse or civil partner and minor children) directly or indirectly more than 10% of the capital of Trinseo, capital gains will be taxable at a special rate, if the disposal or liquidation takes place:

Luxembourg corporate holders. Capital gains realized upon the disposal of shares by a Luxembourg corporate holder will in principle be subject to corporate income tax and municipal business tax. The combined applicable rate (including an unemployment fund contribution) is 29.22% for the fiscal year ending 2015 for a Luxembourg corporate holder established in Luxembourg-City. An exemption from such taxes may be available to the Luxembourg corporate holder pursuant to Article 166 of the Luxembourg Income Tax law subject to the fulfillment of the conditions set forth therein. The scope of the capital gains exemption may be limited in the cases provided by the Grand Ducal Decree of December 21, 2001.

Non-Luxembourg Holders

An individual non-Luxembourg Holder of shares will only be subject to Luxembourg taxation on capital gains arising upon disposal of such shares if such holder has (together with his or her spouse or civil partner and underage children) directly or indirectly held more than 10% of the capital of Trinseo, at any time during the five years preceding the disposal, and either (i) such holder has been a resident of Luxembourg for tax purposes for at least 15 years and has become a non-resident within the five years preceding the realization of the gain, subject to any applicable tax treaty, or (ii) the disposal of shares occurs within six months from their acquisition (or prior to their actual acquisition), subject to any applicable tax treaty. If we and a U.S. relevant holder are eligible for the benefits of the Convention Between the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Government of the United States for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital (the “Luxembourg-U.S. Treaty”), such U.S. relevant holder generally should not be subject to Luxembourg tax on the gain from the disposal of such shares unless such gain is attributable to a permanent establishment of such U.S. relevant holder in Luxembourg. Subject to any restrictions imposed by the substantially and regularly traded clause in the limitation on benefits article of the Luxembourg-U.S. treaty, we expect to be eligible for the benefits of the Luxembourg-U.S. Treaty.

A corporate non-Luxembourg Holder (that is, a collectivité within the meaning of Article 159 of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law), which has a permanent establishment, a permanent representative or fixed place of business in Luxembourg to which shares would be attributable, will bear corporate income tax and municipal business tax on a gain realized on a disposal of such shares as set forth above for a Luxembourg corporate holder. However, gains realized on the sale of the shares may benefit from the full exemption provided for by Article 166 of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law and by the Grand Ducal Decree of December 21, 2001 subject in each case to fulfillment of the conditions set out therein.

A corporate non-Luxembourg Holder, which has a permanent establishment, permanent representative or fixed place of business in Luxembourg to which the shares would be attributable will not be subject to any Luxembourg tax on a gain realized on a disposal of such shares unless such holder holds, directly or through tax transparent entities, more than 10% of the share capital of Trinseo, and the disposal of shares occurs within six months from their acquisition (or prior to their actual acquisition), subject to any applicable tax treaty. If we and a U.S. corporate holder without a permanent establishment in Luxembourg are eligible for the benefits of the Luxembourg-U.S. Treaty, such U.S. corporate holder generally should not be subject to Luxembourg tax on the gain from the disposal of such shares.

Tax Regime Applicable to Distributions

Withholding Tax. Dividend distributions by Trinseo are subject to a withholding tax of 15%. Distributions by the Company sourced from a reduction of capital as defined in Article 97 (3) of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law including, among others, share premium should not be subject to withholding tax provided that such reduction of capital is

motivated by serious business reasons as meant in said provision. We or the applicable paying agent will withhold on a distribution if required by applicable law.

Where a withholding needs to be applied, the rate of the withholding tax may be reduced pursuant to the double tax treaty existing between Luxembourg and the country of residence of the relevant holder, subject to the fulfillment of the conditions set forth therein. If we and a U.S. relevant holder are eligible for the benefits of the Luxembourg-U.S. Treaty, the rate of withholding on distributions generally is 15% or 5% if the U.S. relevant holder is a beneficial owner that owns at least 10% of our voting stock.

No withholding tax applies if the distribution is made to (i) a Luxembourg resident corporate holder (that is, a fully taxable collectivité within the meaning of Article 159 of the Luxembourg Income Tax Law), (ii) a corporation which is resident of a Member State of the European Union and is referred to by article 2 of the Council Directive of July 23, 1990 concerning the common fiscal regime applicable to parent and subsidiary companies of different member states (90/435/EEC), (iii) a corporation or a cooperative resident in Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and subject to a tax comparable to corporate income tax as provided by Luxembourg Income Tax Law, (iv) a corporation resident in Switzerland which is subject to corporate income tax in Switzerland without benefiting from an exemption, (v) a corporation subject to a tax comparable to corporate income tax as provided by Luxembourg Income Tax Law which is resident in a country that has concluded a tax treaty with Luxembourg and (vi) a Luxembourg permanent establishment of one of the above-mentioned categories, provided each time that at the date of payment, the holder has held or commits itself to continue to hold directly or through a tax transparent vehicle, during an uninterrupted period of at least twelve months, shares representing at least 10% of the share capital of Trinseo or which had an acquisition price of at least EUR 1,200,000.

Equity Repayment.  The repayment of equity, by the Company is not treated as a dividend distribution under Luxembourg law, and therefore is not subject to any withholding tax, provided: (i) the Company has no statutory reserves or profits at the Company level, and (ii) the capital decrease is motivated by sound business reasons. The Company did not have any statutory profits or reserves as of December 31, 2015. In case the Company does not have sound business reasons to provide a repayment of equity, the entire amount repaid will be subject to a 15% withholding tax, unless the conditions for an exemption or a reduction from the withholding tax on dividends set forth above are met. 

Luxembourg Holders

Dividend and liquidation proceeds are in principle taxable at the general income tax rates indicated above. A partial dividend exemption may be available to Luxembourg Holders pursuant to Article 115.15a of the Luxembourg Income Tax law or a full dividend exemption may be available to a Luxembourg corporate holder pursuant to Article 166 of the Luxembourg Income Tax law, subject to the fulfillment of the conditions set forth therein.

Non-Luxembourg Holders

Non-Luxembourg holders of the shares who have neither a permanent establishment, permanent representative nor a fixed place of business Luxembourg to which the shares would be attributable are not liable for any Luxembourg tax on dividends paid on the shares, other than a potential withholding tax as described above.

Net Wealth Tax

Luxembourg Holders.

Luxembourg net wealth tax will not be levied on a Luxembourg Holder with respect to the shares held unless the Luxembourg Holder is an entity subject to net wealth tax in Luxembourg.

Net wealth tax is levied annually at the rate of 0.5% on the net wealth of enterprises resident in Luxembourg, as determined for net wealth tax purposes. The shares may be exempt from net wealth tax subject to the conditions set forth by Article 60 of the Law of October 16, 1934 on the valuation of assets (Bewertungsgesetz), as amended.

Non-Luxembourg Holders

Luxembourg net wealth tax will not be levied on a non-Luxembourg Holder with respect to the shares held unless the shares are attributable to an enterprise or part thereof which is carried on through a permanent establishment or a permanent representative in Luxembourg.

Stamp and Registration Taxes

No registration tax or stamp duty will be payable by a holder of shares in Luxembourg solely upon the disposal of shares or by sale or exchange.

Item 6.    Selected Financial Data 

The following table sets forth our selected historical financial and operating data and other information. The historical results of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014, and 2013, and the historical balance sheet data as of December 31, 2015 and 2014 presented below were derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes thereto included elsewhere within this Annual Report. The historical results of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2012, and 2011 and the historical balance sheet data as of December 31, 2013, 2012, and 2011 were derived from our audited financial statements and the related notes thereto not included within this Annual Report. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any future periods.

You should read the information contained in this table in conjunction with Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and the audited financial statements and the related notes thereto included elsewhere in this Annual Report. 

Definitions of capitalized terms not defined herein appear in the notes to our consolidated financial statements.