Dow – Rohm & Haas
According to the latest information
Two important mergers – Dow Chemicals’ buyout of Rohm & Haas and BASF’s acquisition of Ciba – came through this week and cleared their respective final hurdles enabling the corporate world to heave a huge sigh of relief in the former case.
Dow – Rohm & Haas
According to the latest information, Dow has completed the acquisition of Rohm & Haas as per schedule and also negotiated the sale of Morton Salt to K + S of Germany – a leading global supplier of specialty and standard fertilizers, plant care and salt products – for US$ 1.675 billion.
The merger will create a US$ 14 billion division with a diversified business portfolio including coatings, building and construction, specialty materials, adhesives and functional polymers and electronic materials. It will be called Dow’s Advanced Materials Division and will be headed up by Pierre Brondeau as President and CEO. The division is intended to achieve US$ 3 billion in additional value growth opportunities.
The USFTC approval for the acquisition also requires Dow to divest the following businesses:
a) Clear Lake, Texas acrylic acid and esters plant and the related glacial acrylic acid, butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate businesses in North, Central and South America.
b) UCAR Emulsion Systems specialty latex businesses in North America.
c) North American hollow plastic pigment business.
The re-negotiation and actions taken so far will effectively reduce Dow’s bridge loan debt from the originally anticipated US$ 13 billion to around US$ 7.5 billion.
BASF – Ciba
The BASF – Ciba deal has also just received the approval of the US Federal Trade Commission, a precondition for the closing of the acquisition. The USFTC approval is subject to BASF selling all manufacturing assets and related intellectual property for the worldwide production of two pigments used in automobile paint and building materials. At BASF’s request, The Swiss Takeover Board had extended the deadline for the closing of the transaction by 4 weeks until April 09, 2009. BASF has also completed the sale of Ciba’s light stabiliser business to Italy’s Sabo S.r.l and the settlement will be effected by this date.
