UK chemicals firm Brunner Mond is now wholly-owned by India's Tata Group, the business poised to take over Land Rover & Jaguar. The £165m chemicals deal was concluded last year, according to the latest sets of accounts lodged at Companies House. Northwich-based Brunner Mond specialises in producing soda ash & bicarbonate of soda for a variety of applications. During the last extended trading period, sales increased from £107m to more than £147m with profits after tax rising to £8.4m from a loss of £3.6m. The company is also investing £10m at its site to enable it to produce an additional 50,000/t of sodium bicarbonate a year. This is to meet a growing demand for materials useful in neutralising carbon emissions during industrial processes. The company currently has 450 employees in Cheshire & a further 120 in the Netherlands.
