According to recent reports, PPG may be selling its flat glass business to Mexico-based Vitro, SAB de C.V., a move that could impact around 1,000 workers throughout PPG’s entire flat glass business unit.
This sale would mark PPG’s continued shift away from glass making to coatings, which now represents more than 90 percent of its holdings.
In November 2014, PPG acquired Comex, Mexico’s leading architectural coatings company just two months after selling PPG’s Mt. Zion, Ill., flat glass manufacturing facility. The expansion into coatings continued in 2015 with PPG’s purchase of a half-dozen other businesses in the performance or industrial coatings sectors.
In early 2016 PPG sold its 40 percent share in Pittsburgh Glass Works to Chicago-based LKQ Corp. for $635 million.
According to its most recent annual report, net sales for PPG’s combined flat glass and fiber glass businesses last year were just below $1.09 billion, down from $1.11 billion in 2014.
PPG overall reported net income of $1.4 billion in 2015 on sales of $15.3 billion.
Vitro is Mexico’s largest glass manufacturer. It reported $882 million in sales last year, a 5.5 percent increase over 2014, including $672 million in flat glass sales.