Parent of Dial to move jobs, legacy from Arizona

• Arizona will lose roughly 375 jobs as soap/detergent maker Henkel moves an operation from Scottsdale
• The German firm will combine the operation with Sun Products, which it acquired this year
• The move severs a connection with one of Arizona's hallmark companies, the Dial Corp.

The German parent of an Arizona company that makes soaps and detergents plans to consolidate the unit's operations in Connecticut, closing its operations in Scottsdale over the next year and a half.

The move will end Arizona's historic connection to Dial soaps.

Roughly 375 people work in the Scottsdale office of Henkel AG.

Those employees will be offered the chance to relocate, the company said.

The German company makes Dial soaps, Persil and Purex laundry detergents, Right Guard antiperspirants, beauty products, adhesives and other items.

The Scottsdale office tests products, conducts market research and performs other tasks but doesn't manufacture. Henkel, which employs about 50,000 people worldwide, bought the operation when it acquired Dial Corp. in 2004.

An article last year in The Arizona Republic examined the Scottsdale facility and its people in more detail.

Henkel said it will combine the operations of Sun Products Corp., which Henkel acquired in June for $3.6 billion, and relocate employees of both companies to a facility in Stamford, Conn. The move will start in either the second or third quarters of 2017 and conclude in early 2018.

Henkel said the move "represents the next step toward fully integrating Henkel and Sun operations." Sun makes products include Sun and Snuggle. The combination makes Henkel the No. 2 company behind Procter & Gamble in the U.S. laundry business.

Relocating to Connecticut brings Henkel's consumer  businesses closer to other company operations in the eastern U.S. and to its North American headquarters in Rocky Hill, Conn.

Henkel, headquartered in Dusseldorf, was founded in 1876, and its flagship Persil detergent dates to 1907. Dial soap products evolved in the 1940s in Chicago under meatpacker Armour & Co., as tallow used in soap was a byproduct of meatpacking.

A separate entity, bus company Greyhound Corp., bought Armour in 1970 and moved to Phoenix the following year. After the company exited the transportation business in the 1980s, it changed its name to the Dial Corp., in 1991.

Five years after that, the company split in two, with Dial and its consumer products going one way and a new corporation, Viad, going another. Viad, which offers marketing/events services and those geared to travel/recreation, remains an independent company still headquartered in Phoenix.

Reach the reporter at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8616.