LCY Chemical buys assets of Montreal’s BioAmber Inc.

Taiwan-based LCY Chemical Corp. has purchased the assets of bankrupt sustainable chemicals company BioAmber Inc., which was headquartered in Montreal.

The purchase was made by LCY’s green sciences division, LCY Biotechnology, and includes BioAmber’s shuttered plant Sarnia, Ont., which opened in 2015 and cost $140 million to build, including $52 million in federal and provincial funding.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the court-appointed monitor for proceedings under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act, the Sarnia plant has been sold to LCY for US$4.34 million as part of a court-supervised liquidation of the company.

BioAmber filed for court production in May, saying at the time it was “faced with a liquidity crisis” as well as “the inability to raise capital on public markets as a result of its recent delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.”

BioAmber used corn syrup to make succinic acid, a building block chemical used in products ranging from plastics to cosmetics and food additives. When it was operational, the BioAmber’s Sarnia plant employed approximately 60 workers.

It attracted $52 million in federal and provincial funding to help it build its $140-million plant in Sarnia.

As reported in the London Free Press, the plant manager with LCY Biotechnology says it will be several months before production begins again.