Sky News has learnt that Johnson Matthey will announce, as part of its full-year result, that it is selling its Catalyst Technologies arm – one of four main divisions at the company.
Banking sources said the deal had been agreed for a price of between £1.5bn and £2bn – which at the upper end would equate to more than 80% of the group’s entire £2.3bn market capitalisation.
The identity of the buyer could not be established on Wednesday evening.
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Selling its Catalyst Technologies is expected to be welcomed by some shareholders who have argued that Johnson Matthey has been insufficiently focused on higher-growth businesses with more obvious potential to generate financial returns.
The London-listed company has been under siege from Standard Industries, the US-based conglomerate which is its biggest shareholder with a stake of over 10%.
Standard Industries wrote an open letter to Johnson Matthey’s board in January, accusing it of destroying shareholder value.
It said the British company’s directors were guilty of a “continued lack of urgency and incapacity…to do what is necessary to turn Johnson Matthey around and help it to realise its potential”.
The Catalyst Technologies arm accounted for roughly a fifth of group sales in the half-year to the end of August, but about a third of group profit.
As well as being involved in the production of technology needed to make SAF, the division is a market leader in supplying specialised services to the chemicals and energy sectors, with a particular focus on decarbonisation.
More generally, Johnson Matthey is one of Britain’s most significant industrial names, tracing its history back to 1817.
A spokesman for Johnson Matthey, which has seen its shares slump by nearly a quarter over the last year, declined to comment on Wednesday.
