Unilever Plans To Sell Chemical Business

The consumer products giant Unilever wants to do what it does best - sell soap and food. So it’s getting rid of its chemical business, selling it to Imperial Chemical Industries PLC for $8 billion.

The deal, announced Wednesday, is one of the biggest in British corporate history and gives London-based ICI a new direction nearly four years after it got out of drug making.

ICI now can shift its focus from bulk chemicals, where companies are often ravaged by the ups and downs of the business cycle, toward products less volatile in price swings, such as food flavorings and adhesive products.

Unilever decided in February it wanted out of the specialty chemicals business. But it wanted to sell its operations as a package to a big chemical company to save jobs, many at its home bases in the Netherlands and Britain.