The name that has become synonymous with the chemical 
industry in Delaware is getting a new identity in 2019, with officials pledging to focus on growth areas in the year ahead.
In February, DowDuPont announced that its specialty products division would continue under the DuPont name when it separates into an independent company prior to 2019. The announcement followed the closure of the $130 billion merger in September 2017 between DuPont and The Dow Chemical Company.
The new DuPont will be based in Wilmington, according to DowDuPont. Wilmington will also serve as the home of an independent agriculture company – called Corteva Agriscience – when it separates prior to June 2019.
“For more than 200 years, customers have looked to DuPont to help them turn their best ideas into real-world products,” said Marc Doyle, currently COO of the specialty products division, in a statement in February. “We are creating a premier innovation-driven specialty leader, drawing on expertise and assets from both heritage Dow and DuPont, which delivers the essential advances that our customers – and the world – need to thrive.”
DowDuPont’s specialty products division includes electronics and imaging, industrial biosciences, nutrition and health, safety and construction and other assets. Doyle told investors on a February conference call that the division is “doubling down on the growth investment” in areas including probiotics, which he said “has been growing double digits now for several years and is really reaching an appreciable scale.”
More broadly, Doyle gave investors a vision for where the division is headed.
“It’s about ensuring that we’re leveraging best practices across all of these specialty businesses. And it’s about putting in place the right culture of focus on innovation, customers and market knowledge. So these things are the levers that will play out over the next couple of years to pick up the growth rate of the whole division,” Doyle said.
