Essen, Germany. With a clear focus on all its activities, Evonik will strengthen growth over the next three years. The business portfolio will be set up according to roles, and specific tasks will be assigned to the major sites in Germany. At the same time, targeted growth projects will improve the geostrategic balance.
Evonik is securing financial leeway for these investments through the Evonik Tailor Made restructuring program, which aims to further lower the Group's cost base. As part of this program, 3,200 jobs will be cut worldwide, around 2,150 of them in Germany.
As part of the annual strategy meeting, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board discussed plans up to 2030 in detail. "The Executive Board, Supervisory Board and employee representatives share one conviction: We are in a structural and economic crisis in our industry," says interim CEO Claus Rettig. " We will use this polycrisis to change old structures and position ourselves better. Even in this crisis, many parts of our business are growing. We will therefore concentrate growth on our strengths, on the right future topics and on the most lucrative markets. At the same time, we will create leeway through better cost positions."
The comprehensive transformation of Evonik will thus continue at all levels. The portfolio will be strengthened through targeted investments in growth markets. In Canada and Slovakia, for example, growth projects have been launched in healthcare and biotechnology businesses with a total volume in the three-digit million euro range.
The individual business units will consistently be aligned according to their roles and managed accordingly: as growth drivers or cash generators. For example, the new business line Designed Polymer Solutions is currently being founded. It bundles growth areas from the aerospace, automotive and gas separation markets, including biogas and hydrogen.
Evonik sees good opportunities for growth particularly in Asia and America. Further investments in these regions are currently being examined. Growth opportunities in Asia and America are also to be exploited more quickly and consistently from the existing European production network, which mainly consists of the German sites. The goal remains a balanced distribution of revenue in the three regions Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
In Germany, a clear profile will be defined for each of the six major production sites, which serve as guidelines for their future development. Implementation will begin in the next few days.
At the same time, Evonik is withdrawing from activities for which there are no prospects within the company. "Only as leaders in what we do will we be able to establish ourselves at the forefront of our industry in the long term," says Rettig. "The future will remain volatile, which means we must be able to react in a flexible manner to short-term changes in order to be a reliable partner for our customers in all regions of the world. Our positioning and innovative strength in many key technologies in specialty chemicals mean we have a better foundation for this than our competition."
The announced closures of smaller sites are part of this context. The divestments of the large businesses C4 chemicals (Oxeno GmbH) and infrastructure (Syneqt GmbH) are progressing as planned.
Evonik Tailor Made will enter its second implementation phase in 2027, run for three years until 2029 and seamlessly follow the first phase from 2024 to 2026.
Detailed measures will be completed by the end of 2026. They include not filling positions that become vacant, early retirements and voluntary departures against severance payments. "Evonik was and is known as a company that lives social responsibility and maintains an intensive dialogue with employee representatives," says Chief Human Resources Officer Thomas Wessel. "This transformation again is one that we are tackling together, and together we will successfully bring it to fruition."