DuPont Reorganizes Business

DuPont (DD) consolidated its 23 businesses into 14 in an effort to streamline its operations. The 14 businesses are Pioneer Hi-Bred, Crop Protection, Nutrition & Health, Electronics & Communications, Performance Coatings, Performance Polymers, Packaging & Industrial Polymers, Protection Technologies, Building Innovations, Safety Resources, Chemical Solutions, Fluoroproducts, Titanium Technologies and Applied BioSciences.
 
DuPont also redefined its reporting segments to provide greater transparency. The new segments would be Agriculture & Nutrition (Pioneer Hi-Bred, Crop Protection, Nutrition & Health), Electronics & Communications, Performance Coatings, Performance Materials (Performance Polymers and Packaging & Industrial Polymers), Safety & Protection (Protection Technologies, Building Innovations, Safety Resources), Performance Chemicals (Chemical Solutions, Fluoroproducts, Titanium Technologies) and Pharmaceuticals (Applied BioSciences).

As part of the consolidation, the chemical maker commented that it eliminated the five group vice president positions and their supporting business structures associated with the platforms that house its businesses. The group vice presidents have currently been reabsorbed in new roles within the 14 businesses.
 
Among the various role changes, the most significant was the transfer of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Keefer to lead the Performance Coatings business, corporate strategy development process and overall cost and working capital productivity efforts, effective Nov 1.
 
DuPont claims the streamlined organization will bring business decisions closer to customers and increase transparency and accountability. We continue to maintain our Neutral recommendation on the shares of DuPont with a target price of $33.00.

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