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DOW Chemical is looking to recast itself as a speciality chemicals company in a bid to nearly double margins from 12% to 20% and quadruple earnings per share.

In a meeting with investors, Dow’s ceo Andrew Liveris defended the company’s $16.3b purchase of speciality chemicals maker Rohm & Haas – signed just before the economic downturn – as a vital part of Dow’s strategy to concentrate on speciality chemicals, which typically have higher margins and are less exposed to business cycles than bulk chemicals.

Underlining how Dow had already changed and would not be tied down by how the company may have historically been perceived as a commodity chemicals maker, Liveris told the meeting: "This is not, I repeat not your father's or mother's Dow Chemical Company."

To date, Dow has divested some $3.5b worth of assets in 2009, including the sale of its powder coatings business to Akzo Nobel for an undisclosed sum, which was announced yesterday. The company also agreed to sell Morton Salts, a subunit it took over through Rohm & Haas, to K+S for $1.7b. The sale of its 45% stake in the Dutch oil refinery Total Raffinaderij Nederland to Valero Energy is also still awaiting completion.

The sell-off will continue in 2010, Liveris says. The company expects to earn another $2b from asset sales, drawn from a pool of assets worth around $12b. These include polystyrene, rubber and latex business Styron, several mid-sized standalone businesses and many of the petrochemicals assets originally slated to be part of the failed K-Dow joint venture with Petrochemicals Industries Company of Kuwait. Dow says it is still looking for new potential joint venture partners for the units and is in discussions with several state-owned companies.

Other underperforming plants have simply been closed down: in 2009, two Louisiana ethylene plants shut their doors, and a third is due to follow in 2011.