Venator Materials PLC (VNTR)

Venator Materials PLC was a global chemical company that produced titanium dioxide, the white pigment used to make paints, coatings, plastics, paper and inks opaque and bright. It also had a performance additives business making color pigments, functional additives, timber treatment chemicals and water treatment products. The company was incorporated in England and Wales, had its head office at Wynyard Park near Stockton-on-Tees in northeast England, and ran manufacturing sites across Europe, North America and Asia.

Venator was formed from the pigments and additives division of Huntsman Corporation. Huntsman took the unit public in August 2017, selling about 26.1 million ordinary shares at $20.00 each on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VNTR. Venator itself received none of the offering proceeds, and Huntsman kept roughly three quarters of the shares after the deal. Huntsman reduced that stake over the following years through further sales and eventually exited its holding.

The business faced trouble almost from the start. In January 2017, months before the listing, a fire badly damaged its titanium dioxide plant in Pori, Finland, one of its largest sites. Rebuilding costs climbed and the company later decided to close the plant instead of fully restoring it. Pigment prices are cyclical, and Venator also carried more than $1 billion of debt, which limited its room to absorb weak years. The share price fell well below its offering price in 2018 and never recovered.

Conditions worsened in the second half of 2022, when demand for pigments dropped while energy and raw material costs in Europe rose sharply. In May 2023 Venator reached a deal with most of its lenders and noteholders on a prepackaged Chapter 11 plan filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The plan converted nearly all of its funded debt into equity and was backed by $275 million of new-money debtor-in-possession financing.

Because the plan proposed to cancel the existing ordinary shares, NYSE Regulation found the stock no longer suitable for listing and suspended trading on May 15, 2023, after which the shares were quoted over the counter. The court confirmed the plan in July 2023, and Venator completed its recapitalization in October 2023 with debt cut to around $200 million. Former shareholders received nothing, and the company continued operating under the ownership of its former creditors as a privately held business.