Coatings and chemicals group AkzoNobel is back on the takeover trail. ‘Growth is the goal and takeovers are a means to this end,’ Conrad Keijzer, director of the group’s largest and most profitable division Performance Coatings, told the Financieele Dagblad on Friday.

The Amsterdam-based company completed the €475m acquisition of Basf industrial coatings division on Thursday. The German unit has annual turnover of €300m.

‘We want to take part in the consolidation of the coatings industry,’ Keijzer said.

The European market, AkzoNobel’s largest market, is particularly fragmented and AkzoNobel is keen to head off moves there by its main rival, PPG of the US. ‘As a result, we are very pleased with takeover of Basf’s coatings unit,’ Keijzer said.