Within the vast chemical industry, coatings is considered to be at the glamorous end of things. And within the coatings sub-sector, decorative paint can claim to be the most showbiz of them all; in the good old days, the marketing budgets were huge, with elaborate events to usher in the “color of the year.” In 2024, PPG launched the “subdued” yet “sophisticated” Limitless warm honey beige, only to go on to sell its $2 billion North American architectural paint business before the year was out.
So how is PPG filling the void left by the disposal of the high-profile Glidden, Olympic, and Liquid Nails brands in its home region?
Right now, PPG’s Aerospace division is stepping up and loving the attention. Since the sale of North American deco, aerospace’s plans have been getting fast-tracked and major investments are flowing into areas like pre-cured sealant-based caps for wing bolts and 3D printed gaskets as CEO Tim Knavish spearheads expansion beyond aircraft OEM and MRO coatings into engineered materials and components. PPG still has deco operations in Latin America, plus its major hubs in the Netherlands, the U.K., and France. But North America was a big chunk of that division.
“The sale allows us to focus on the businesses that are going to be the most accretive,” Sam Millikin, senior vice president of Aerospace, said in an interview with chemicalESG at the Farnborough Air Show.
“We are taking a look, as the industry continues to grow, at further investments. That is an active conversation. Stay tuned.”
The 37-year PPG veteran is in full expansion mode. More than $500 million has already been earmarked for aerospace, including $380 million on a new 198,000-square-foot coatings-and-sealants plant in Shelby, North Carolina. More projects are coming down the pipe and being finalized, Millikin said.
PPG, founded in 1883 as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co, has a long history in aerospace. It is one of only a few suppliers of flight-deck windows: these days they are sophisticated multi-layered structures of glass, resins, and polymers. Today’s move deeper into material science is part of a more coordinated strategy to move downstream as demand grows for light-weighting, sustainability, and safety-critical components, whether that’s for new composite aircraft or hypersonic missile applications.
“We have been able to demonstrate to our internal senior management, as well as our board, a growth path that can attract the investment,” Millikin added. “We have already signed off on a lot of investments already.”
According to Millikin, you can go into any Airbus factory and somewhere there will be a freezer unit stacked full of PPG’s engineered PRC Seal Caps. Nor is the company averse to making its own packaging, down to the nozzle tips for sealant guns. PPG has form here. It used to make paint brushes back in the day. All this was on show at PPG’s display at the U.K.’s Farnborough Air Show
Even M&A is back on the agenda after a lull since the last aerospace deal in 2019, the purchase of Dexmet Corp, a maker of custom perforated metal foils and polymers that provide lightning strike protection.
“You may look at that as a long gap,” Millikin said. “Maybe, historically, if you look at PPG as a whole, there were a lot of different acquisitions, but that’s not long relative to the aerospace business. We are back in the game. There are lot of interesting things out there.”
PPG is officially forecasting mid- to high-single-digit growth in aerospace, but its objective is to go “above that,” as it has been doing in past quarters. There could be some turbulence in the wider market as AkzoNobel, its closest rival in aerospace coatings, is about to get a whole lot bigger from a $25 billion merger with Axalta Coatings Systems. Like PPG, the Dutch company has also divested some decorative paint businesses, helping shift the battlefield from the shelves of home-improvement stores to the skies.
Some see consolidation in the industry as an opportunity rather than a threat. During the recent spate of M&A in household paint, Sherwin-Williams sought to take advantage by poaching talent and outspending rivals on new paint stores. A coincidence, perhaps, but Millikin said he is also building out his ranks, and hiring in areas like R&D as Akzo and Axalta prepare to tie the knot.
As to where PPG has set the boundary for its expansion in engineered materials and components, that is difficult to say, and tough to get out of Millikin. Could the company extend into prepreg composites? “We don’t do that at this point,” Millikin said.
“PPG is more than just coatings — that is what makes us unique,” the executive added.