Albemarle Celebrates Grand Opening of Shared Services Center in Budapest, Hungary

Company to Shift Many of its Business Processes to its "Center of Excellence" to Increase Efficiencies, and Drive Improved Service Levels to Albemarle's Customers

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Albemarle Corporation

Jun 02, 2010, 12:17 ET

BATON ROUGE, La., June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) a global leader in delivering innovative specialty chemicals, clean energy solutions and outstanding sustainability practices, celebrated the Grand Opening of its global shared services center in Budapest, Hungary during a reception held at the facility last week.

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Known as Albemarle's Center of Excellence (ACE), the facility was developed as part of the company's "Project One Albemarle" initiative designed to standardize and streamline the company's global processes. The result will be one automated, scalable global platform for Albemarle's business which will reduce costs, improve productivity and better support the company's long-term growth.

"Albemarle's Center of Excellence is a critical component of our vision to transform the company into a stronger, more efficient organization," said Luke Kissam, company president. "We took a very close look at certain areas of our business processes and applied a LEAN manufacturing model to these activities. We identified complexities and inconsistencies in our processes and set out to simplify, standardize and automate them. Now, we're beginning the implementation phase. In the future, we will assess the implementation and start the entire process over, resulting in a circle of continuous improved productivity."

Albemarle established specific criteria to select the most beneficial location to house the ACE facility. After an exhaustive search that included several areas of Eastern Europe, the company ultimately chose Hungary because of several factors including:

The level of government and community support and engagement
The close proximity to a well-educated and experienced employee base with the required skills and expertise to drive the Center's success
The city's premier location which will properly support the company's objectives and also provides an innovative and energetic working environment for the ACE employees

Located in the Capital Square building in a premier section of Budapest, the new ACE facility boasts a contemporary, clean design. Complete with ergonomic furniture, state-of-the-art technologies and modern amenities, the space is designed to attract potential employees and foster a dynamic work environment that inspires collaboration and creativity. The building was recently recognized by Construction & Investment Magazine as the "Best Office Building Development of 2009."

"At Albemarle, our focus is on performance excellence in everything we do," said J. Duncan Johnson, managing director of the company's Hungarian operations. "We wanted to create a dynamic, exciting environment that would promote innovation, creativity and ingenuity as well as visually support the sustainability values of our company. Our partners really understood what we were trying to achieve and were instrumental in helping us develop a work space that inspires pride and drives results."

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a leading global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of highly-engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics, petroleum refining, utilities, packaging, construction, automotive/transportation, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, food-safety and custom chemistry services. The Company is committed to global sustainability and is advancing its eco-practices and solutions in its three business segments, Polymer Solutions, Catalysts and Fine Chemicals. Corporate Responsibility Magazine recently selected Albemarle to its prestigious "100 Best Corporate Citizens" list for 2010. Albemarle employs approximately 4,000 people and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. To learn more, visit www.albemarle.com.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Albemarle Corporation's business that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

SOURCE Albemarle Corporation