CLEVELAND, June 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PolyOne Corporation , a leading global provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions, today announced price increases of up to 20 percent, a result of the ongoing, unprecedented escalation of costs associated with raw materials, energy and transportation.
The price increases will apply across all PolyOne business units and geographies, and took effect June 1, or will take effect June 15 or July 1, 2008, as current agreements allow. Specific price adjustments will depend upon each product's exposure to these cost increases.
"In the past week, major industry suppliers have announced significant price increases on key raw materials. These well-publicized increases and substantial escalation of energy and distribution costs have put considerable pressure on everyone in the value chain to move prudently to mitigate their effects," said Stephen D. Newlin, chairman, president and chief executive officer.
"We owe it to our customers to provide them with solutions that create value and help them manage their total cost of operations. We're doing everything we can through our focus on operational excellence and supply chain efforts to reduce cost pressures. However, these recent developments compel us to take pricing actions that enable us to continue to support our customers with industry-leading products, services and support."
About PolyOne
PolyOne Corporation, with annual revenues of more than $2.7 billion, is a leading global provider of specialized polymer materials, services and solutions. Headquartered outside of Cleveland, Ohio USA, PolyOne has operations around the globe. For additional information on PolyOne, visit our new Web site at http://www.polyone.com/ .
PolyOne's materials solutions include engineered resins and compounds; color and additive concentrates; thermoplastic elastomers; screen printing inks and dyes; low smoke and fume, zero halogen (LSFOH) compounds; plasticizers; general-purpose resins and compounds; and Geon(TM) vinyl resins and compounds.
Forward-looking Statements
In this press release, statements that are not reported financial results or other historical information are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements give current expectations or forecasts of future events and are not guarantees of future performance. They are based on management's expectations that involve a number of business risks and uncertainties, any of which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. You can identify these statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historic or current facts. They use words such as "will," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "intend," "plan," "believe," and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance and/or sales. In particular, these include statements relating to future actions; prospective changes in raw material costs, product pricing or product demand; future performance; results of current and anticipated market conditions and market strategies; sales efforts; expenses; the outcome of contingencies such as legal proceedings; and financial results. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to:
-- the effect on foreign operations of currency fluctuations, tariffs, nationalization, exchange controls, limitations on foreign investment in local businesses and other political, economic and regulatory risks; -- changes in polymer consumption growth rates within the U.S., Europe or Asia or other countries where PolyOne conducts business; -- changes in global industry capacity or in the rate at which anticipated changes in industry capacity come online in the polyvinyl chloride (PVC), chlor-alkali, vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) or other industries in which PolyOne participates; -- fluctuations in raw material prices, quality and supply and in energy prices and supply, in particular fluctuations outside the normal range of industry cycles; -- production outages or material costs associated with scheduled or unscheduled maintenance programs; -- the cost of compliance with environmental laws and regulations, including any increased cost of complying with new or revised laws and regulations; -- unanticipated developments that could occur with respect to contingencies such as litigation and environmental matters, including any developments that would require any increase in our costs and/or reserves for such contingencies; -- an inability to achieve or delays in achieving or achievement of less than the anticipated financial benefit from initiatives related to PolyOne's specialization strategy, operational excellence initiatives, cost reductions and employee productivity goals; -- an inability to raise or sustain prices for products or services; -- an inability to maintain appropriate relations with unions and employees in certain locations in order to avoid business disruptions; -- any change in any agreements with product suppliers to PolyOne Distribution that prohibits PolyOne from continuing to distribute a supplier's products to customers; -- the ability to successfully integrate GLS; -- the ability to successfully integrate Ngai Hing PlastChem, and -- other factors affecting our business beyond our control, including, without limitation, changes in the general economy, changes in interest rates and changes in the rate of inflation.
We cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will be realized, although we believe we have been prudent in our plans and assumptions. Achievement of future results is subject to risks, uncertainties and inaccurate assumptions. Should known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove inaccurate, actual results could vary materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected. Investors should bear this in mind as they consider forward-looking statements.
We undertake no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You are advised, however, to consult any further disclosures we make on related subjects in our reports on Form 10-Q, 8-K and 10-K that we provide to the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should understand that it is not possible to predict or identify all risk factors. Consequently, you should not consider any list to be a complete set of all potential risks or uncertainties. (Ref. #32108)
