𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Speciality chemicals firm Johnson Matthey has struck a deal worth up to 460 million US dollars (£343 million) to buy a US catalyst maker in a bid to tap into surging global demand for data centres.

It announced the acquisition of Cormetech, a firm it said has been growing in the US power generation market and has the potential to meet a roughly one billion dollar (£750 million) pipeline of work.

The deal values Cormetech at 360 million dollars (£269 million) but with the potential to pay out up to an additional 100 million dollars (£75 million) if the firm meets specific financial performance targets.

It comes after Johnson Matthey recently agreed the sale of Catalyst Technologies for £1.3 billion, having cut the sale price from £1.8 billion to reflect the business’s performance.

It is waiting to get the greenlight from a regulator for the sale to complete.

The London-listed company said acquiring Cormetech will expand its clean air solutions arm and meet demand for technologies for data centres.

Data centres are being rapidly rolled out around the world, particularly in the US, and are used to power digital services including, increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI).

Johnson Matthey said Cormetech has approximately 300 million dollars (£224 million) worth of orders secured for the next two years and a roughly one billion dollar (£750 million) pipeline of projects, primarily relating to data centres in the US.

Campaigners in the UK and Ireland have raised concerns about data centres, with opponents pointing to their high use of energy and the prospect of them being built on green belt land.

Meanwhile, Johnson Matthey revealed its pre-tax profit tumbled by 77% to £91 million in the year to the end of March, compared with the previous year.

On an underlying basis, which strips out what it views as one-off costs, profits grew by 11% to £271 million.

Meanwhile, it said conflict in the Middle East had not affected its finances in recent months, but cautioned that its “performance may be impacted by the future impact on global demand, supply chains and inflation”.

Liam Condon, Johnson Matthey’s chief executive, said: “The sale of Catalyst Technologies is on track and the acquisition of Cormetech represents another important milestone in JM’s development.

“Cormetech will materially enhance the scale of clean air solutions and create a global leader in stationary emissions control, including for the rapidly growing data centre market.”