Covestro sells U.S. sheets outlet
Sheffield — Germany-based materials manufacturer Covestro intends to sell its global polycarbonate sheets business. As a first step, Covestro’s PCS sheets business, which generated sales of about $170 million in 2017, has been sold to U.S.-based acrylic sheets manufacturer Plaskolite LLC. The deal will be conducted as an asset deal, which means that, in addition to the transfer of dedicated intellectual property and fixed assets, employees will join Plaskolite. Operations will continue at the current facility. The companies agreed on a purchase price in the high double-digit million U.S. dollar range. Closing is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2018.
“We continuously evaluate and optimize our portfolio to secure future growth and value creation. During that process it became clear that our sheets business will not be a strategic fit to our Polycarbonates business in the long term,” said Covestro CEO Patrick Thomas. “We therefore decided that it can develop and grow better under a new owner and we are happy to have found a great buyer for our US outlet with Plaskolite.”
The company will soon open a separate bidding process for its outlets in Europe and, in due course, will announce details regarding its remaining outlets in the Asia-Pacific region.
–E.E.
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Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire receives 2018 tax credit allocation
Great Barrington — The Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire was selected as a community partner and awarded a 2018 allocation of community investment tax credits in the amount of $100,000 from the Massachusetts Community Investment Tax Credit Program.
The tax credits are provided by the Commonwealth to increase the capacity of certified community-based organizations. The Department of Housing and Community Development evaluated CDCSB’s community investment plan, statement of progress, and demonstration of previous credit utilization in making an investment decision. The tax credits provide a 50-percent Massachusetts tax credit for donations of $1,000 or greater. The allocation from DHCD allows CDCSB to raise $200,000 in donations. Individuals, businesses, nonprofits and out-of-state residents may take advantage of this program.
–E.E.
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Austen Riggs CEO joins NAMI board of directors
Stockbridge — The Austen Riggs Center has announced that its medical director and CEO, Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, has been appointed to the board of directors of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts.
In addition to his work at Austen Riggs, Gerber is associate clinical professor in the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, associate clinical professor at Yale University’s Child Study Center, and adjunct associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences. He is the former co-director of the Columbia University Sackler Parent Infant Project, former director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute MRI research program and former director of research at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. While in New York, he also had a private psychoanalytic practice.
–E.E.
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Mahaiwe receives financial support from Feigenbaum Foundation, Berkshire Bank
Great Barrington — The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center has received support from the Feigenbaum Foundation and Berkshire Bank to fund its 2018 season, youth programs and capital projects.
The $50,000 Feigenbaum Foundation grant will be divided among the following Mahaiwe projects: $25,000 to fund arts education programs for children; $5,000 to support the theater’s youth ticket discount program; and $20,000 toward facility repairs and upgrades that are part of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Cultural Facilities Fund matching grant program.
The Jane & Jack Fitzpatrick Trust and several individual donors have also contributed funds toward the Mahaiwe’s one-to-one match of its $65,000 Cultural Facilities Fund grant, but the theater still needs to raise $28,000 by the end of this year to complete the match for capital projects.
Berkshire Bank has become the Mahaiwe’s 2018 season sponsor with a grant and multi-year commitment. The bank has been a supporter of the Mahaiwe since the theater’s restoration in 2005, and the theater’s lobby is named the Berkshire Bank Lobby in appreciation of the corporate commitment.
–E.E.
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Chesterwood’s Hassler awarded fellowship in Rome
Stockbridge — Chesterwood executive director and administrator of the Historic Artists’ Home and Studios program Donna Hassler has been awarded a National Trust for Historic Preservation-affiliated fellowship of the American Academy in Rome during the month of April.
While at the Academy, Hassler, an art historian and authority on American sculpture, will retrace the steps of 20th-century public sculptor Daniel Chester French in Italy when he was a young student. French, who was a founding board member of the Academy, maintained diaries of his European travels, which are now in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Hassler will keep a written and visual diary of her experiences as she explores French’s life in Italy on Instagram @ChesterwoodNTHP and #dcfrenchinitaly.
Founded in 1894, the American Academy in Rome is the oldest American overseas center for independent study and advanced research in the arts and humanities. A nonprofit, privately funded institution, the Academy awards the Rome prize to a select group of artists and scholars annually, after an application process that begins each fall. The winners, selected by independent juries through a national competition process, are invited to Rome the following year to pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic experimentation and interdisciplinary exchange.
–E.E.
