What strategies is Brenntag currently implementing?

Brenntag is implementing a resilient and adaptive strategy to navigate external uncertainties such as geopolitical tensions and market volatility. By focusing on factors within our control, we concentrate on deepening market penetration, achieving critical mass, and leveraging our existing infrastructure to drive efficiency and growth. Through our Brenntag Essentials division, we continue to execute a ‘triple strategy’ that integrates global scale, regional capabilities, and local market service. This approach allows us to deliver competitive products and tailored solutions that meet the diverse needs of our customers. Our last mile service operations model plays a crucial role in maintaining close proximity to customers, ensuring a consistent, responsive, and effective offering. This combination of global strength and local agility positions us to remain competitive and resilient in a rapidly changing environment.

Our broad portfolio across Brenntag Essentials and Brenntag Specialties provides flexibility, with strong performance in agriculture, food and nutrition, personal care, and industrial sectors like lubricants. For some other markets, underperformance is mostly driven by uncertainty, delaying decision-making until conditions improve.

Where do you see opportunity in Latin America?

Latin America presents a diverse and dynamic landscape, with each country offering unique opportunities for growth. In the Southern Cone, Brenntag has built a strong and long-standing presence in the mining industry, particularly in Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. We anticipate continued growth in this sector, especially as new opportunities emerge in Argentina and Brazil. While we have already established a solid foundation in gold, silver, and copper mining, lithium is rapidly becoming a promising area for expansion.

Mexico and Brazil remain our largest and most strategically important markets in the region, driven by their size, industrial base, and ongoing development. Our recent acquisition of Química Delta has positioned us as a market leader in chemical distribution in Mexico. Beyond these core markets, Colombia presents additional growth potential, while Chile continues to offer opportunities, particularly in energy services and mining.

How do Brenntag’s recent acquisitions in Brazil fit into its growth strategy?

Brenntag’s recent acquisitions of PIC and PharmaSpecial in Brazil are a strategic step aligned with the global growth strategy of Brenntag Specialties, particularly in targeting high-value, key industries such as pharmaceuticals. These acquisitions mark our entry into a previously underrepresented segment in Brazil, significantly enhancing our ability to grow our business and strengthen market participation in this important sector. 

How is Brenntag advancing sustainability in its Latin American operations?

Our Querétaro site in Mexico is one of Latin America’s most advanced distribution centers, and is now fully powered by solar energy thanks to our largest solar farm in the region, inaugurated in September 2024. In Argentina, our Añelo site in the Vaca Muerta region also operates entirely on solar energy.

These efforts are part of a broader regional push to exceed Brenntag’s global sustainability targets, positioning Latin America as a leader within the organization for environmentally responsible operations. Additionally, global initiatives—such as our groundbreaking project in Austria, the world’s first 100% carbon-emission-free chemical distribution site—serve as models for sustainable development and are helping to shape and inspire similar progress in Latin America.

What role will technologies like AI play in the industry’s development in the coming years?

AI already plays an important role across all sectors and the chemical distribution space is no exception, though its full effects and potential are still emerging. It is also important to distinguish AI from broader data analytics, which is absolutely central to improving efficiency and agility.

How is Brenntag preparing for the end of the current downcycle?

In navigating the ongoing industry downcycle, we remain focused on execution of our strategies across Essentials and Specialties: Leveraging global scale, regional strengths, and local last-mile operations to optimize cost, while building scalable models that are difficult for competitors to replicate. Supporting this, our information technology strategy ensures efficient internal decision-making and transparency with partners.

Despite this longer-than-expected downcycle, we continue to prepare for the eventual rebound by emphasizing efficiency, flexibility, top talent, and advanced digital tools, including AI. As such, we are positioning ourselves for accelerated growth and to seize emerging opportunities as the chemical sector begins to rebound.