Cookson unveils demerger plans - Telegraph Shareholders are to receive one share in each of the two new entities for every Cookson share they hold. The performance materials division - which supplies materials and chemicals to the electronics, automotive, industrial and construction markets - would demerge to form a London-listed specialty chemicals company, called Alent. The engineered ceramics division, whose products are used in the glass and solar energy industries as well as by steelmakers and foundries, would be renamed Vesuvius. It will trade under General Industrial on the main London Stock Exchange. Cevian Capital, an activist investor which owns roughly a fifth of Cookson, welcomes the demerger. It said its two founding partners, Christer Gardell and Lars Forberg, would serve as non-executive directors on the boards of the new companies. In April, Cookson appointed investment bank Rothschild to look at a potential spin-off of its electronics division, which makes components for gadgets such as Apple's iPad. Analysts have been mooting the possibility of a split for some time, arguing that it would unlock shareholder value in the shares which have underperformed the wider industrials sector. Cookson shares, which have rise 31pc over the past year, rose 2.8pc.