Covestro is showing its commitment to the U.S. market by investing more than $40 million into its Pittsburgh campus in the next year.
"Six of our 10 largest global customers are headquartered in the U.S.," Covestro L.L.C. Chairman and President Samir Hifri said during an Aug. 29 video call with Plastics News. "This investment reconfirms how important the U.S. is to us."
The investment will include innovations and upgrades for Covestro's research and development labs in Pittsburgh, including new machinery to match customers' use of the firm's materials, such as polyurethane and specialty plastic resins.
"This is our largest R&D investment in Pittsburgh in decades," Hifri said. "Our headquarters here is the nerve center for our R&D capabilities. We want to help our customers transform our products into products for medical, construction, automotive and other markets."
Covestro held a ribbon-cutting event at the site Aug. 27 to mark completion of renovation work on one of its labs. In recent years, customers have been more focused on uses for circular and sustainable materials, Hifri said.
The overall campus also is getting what he called "a facelift."
"We've learned since COVID how employees like to work, and we want to foster more collaboration with our customers," he said.
Covestro now uses a hybrid, flexible work model, with department heads deciding on work schedules.
Covestro's U.S. headquarters covers nine buildings in Pittsburgh and employs about 700. The business has operated in Pittsburgh since 1958, when it was part of Bayer AG.
Covestro was able to incorporate its own materials and its customers' products in many aspects of the campus retrofit, including roofing insulation, interior and exterior paints. Officials said this was important to do, since the construction market account for almost 20 percent of the firm's sales.
Parent company Covestro AG also operates an R&D hub at its global headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany, as well as one in Shanghai.
In 2023, Covestro AG posted sales of almost $16 billion. The firm employs 17,500 full-time equivalents and operates 48 production sites worldwide.
Covestro AG is publicly traded but has been negotiating a potential $13 billion sale to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) for about a year. According to reports, ADNOC may move forward with the acquisition next month.
