DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - Specialty chemicals group Evonik wants to create strength for larger investments in future businesses by restructuring its organization. "We are working on our bikini figure. Evonik is becoming leaner, faster and at the same time more international," Evonik CEO Christian Kullmann told the German newspaper Handelsblatt (Tuesday edition). In the future, Evonik will no longer operate three major sites in Europe itself and will outsource the business to new service companies. A team of managers is also to work out a model for a completely new administration of the group. Thousands of employees will be affected by the plans.

Fresh capital could be raised in particular by spinning off the services operations at the Marl, Antwerp and Wesseling sites from the Group. This involves logistics, energy generation, technical services, workshops and plant security. Evonik plans to establish three independent operating companies to which an estimated 4,000 employees would transfer.

This "carve-out" is to be completed in the second half of 2025. Kullmann is keeping all options open for the future of the new companies: Sale or participation by investors, cooperation with other chemical park operators, or self-management. "We will find individual solutions."

The restructuring of the administration is also intended to create scope. "For Evonik, now is the time to get rid of internal bureaucracy," says Kullmann. The Group currently has a good 8600 organizational units, eight hierarchical levels between production and the Executive Board, and one manager for every four employees. "That's too complex and too expensive," says the boss.

Evonik is thus another large company that feels held back by complexity. At Bayer AG in Leverkusen, the new CEO Bill Anderson has already launched a major project to reduce hierarchies and management levels. Bayer employees are to work and make decisions more independently.

Evonik's project is also aimed in this direction. Kullmann is resorting to unusual means. The CEO is not launching a new efficiency program with interventions in the existing administration; instead, he is having a model of a completely new organization drawn up on paper.

To this end, the Essen-based company has brought together a good dozen experienced employees in a project called "Evonik Taylor Made. They are to develop a modern architecture for the Group's global administration by spring 2024.

The Group is deliberately foregoing consulting services from external consulting companies. "If we didn't know ourselves where we needed to make changes, that would be a strategic capitulation in my eyes," says Kullmann. The plans are to be implemented within three years.

Kullmann is not yet able to quantify how many jobs will be affected and what the restructuring will bring in terms of savings. Evonik's German employees are protected from compulsory redundancies until 2032. Germany accounts for a good two-thirds of the 34,000 employees worldwide.

For Kullmann, however, one thing is clear: "We will have fewer functions and managers in the future. They should not be clerks with a star on their epaulettes, but act in an entrepreneurial way." In return, he says, there will be more freedom and more responsibility.

Behind the plans is an experience that many large companies have already made: The usual cost-cutting programs in administration often did not bring the lasting success that had been hoped for-including at Evonik. Kullmann speaks of "treating the symptoms. In his view, bureaucracy is creating more and more new bureaucracy.

With sales of 18.5 billion euros at last count, Evonik is number two in the German chemical industry behind BASF. Kullmann has vigorously restructured the business portfolio since taking over as CEO in 2017: Billions have been invested in lucrative and higher-growth specialty chemicals, particularly in the USA and Asia. The Group is divesting its bulk chemical products.

The last major step in this restructuring is imminent: The diaper absorbents business is to find a new owner this year; several financial investors are interested. For the remaining units of Evonik's Performance Materials Division, the sale process could take a little longer.

The internal analysis at Evonik revealed that the administration did not go along with this portfolio change and was still too focused on Germany. Now Kullmann wants to give the units in the world's regions more decision-making freedom.

"That's where the markets are made. We will move functions there because we want to be even closer to the customers," he says. "This is also necessary for geopolitical reasons if protectionist tendencies increase." The headquarters in Essen will concentrate fully on strategic management, he adds.

For the 54-year-old, the complete restructuring is the major project of his remaining term as Evonik CEO. 2021, the Supervisory Board has extended Kullmann's contract until 2027. By then, the Group's future businesses are expected to generate additional sales of one billion euros-primarily through organic growth, he announces. These include additives that improve the performance of plastics and chemicals, ingredients for cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals, and biotech.

Evonik needs special engineers for this complex production, who will remain in the Group's Technology unit in the future. All other site services are to be transferred to the three new companies./he/ajx