Jul. 30--Pierre Brondeau, the French executive who was to lead the former Rohm & Haas Co. chemical businesses under new owner Dow Chemical Co., will retire in two months, Dow announced yesterday.

Brondeau's sudden retirement is the latest twist in the rancorous merger between two of the nation's largest chemical companies. Dow purchased Rohm & Haas in April for $15.7 billion, a price that many analysts thought was too high because of the deep recession.

Dow tried mightily to abort the acquisition because of the lofty $78-per-share price, which had been accepted in 2008 before the worst of the economy's collapse. The deal went through as the companies were squared off in Delaware's Chancery Court.

Even before the deal was finally closed, Dow, which is based in Midland, Mich., warned that it would have to make deep cuts in the Rohm operation in Philadelphia.

Brondeau, 51, was the highest-ranking former Rohm executive in Dow's management and was expected to remain there as a division leader with broad authority.

Brondeau was not available for comment yesterday.

Jerome Peribere, 55, a 30-year Dow veteran, will replace Brondeau in Philadelphia as head of Dow Advanced Materials. Peribere currently manages Dow's Indianapolis-based agricultural business, which some have speculated might be sold to help pay for the Rohm & Haas acquisition.

Dow said there would be no change in direction for the Philadelphia-based operation as a result of the executive changes.

Brondeau's departure follows the retirement of Raj Gupta, Rohm's chief executive officer and board chairman, who led the fight to force the acquisition by Dow. The Dow purchase brought huge payments for ranking Rohm executives such as Gupta and Brondeau.

Brondeau was considered a top executive because he was an architect for Rohm & Haas' electronic-materials division, which supplies the computer and television industry. The division was considered a crown jewel within Rohm & Haas.

Brondeau's talents were recognized by Dow. He was described as "an outstanding leader" by Andrew N. Liveris, Dow's president and CEO. A Dow spokesman did say of Dow's management: "It's a big organization with a lot of breadth."

Dow is scheduled to announce quarterly earnings today. It will be the first earnings period to include the former Rohm operations.

Contact staff writer Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or bob.fernandez@phillynews.com.

-----

To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:ROH, NYSE:DOW, Osaka:6963,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.