After shedding US$1.72 billion in assets, Huntsman Corp. may go on sale

24-Feb-07

After shedding US$1.72 billion in assets to become a specialty products manufacturer, Huntsman Corp., the fifth-biggest U.S. chemical company, may put itself up for sale. The chairman is the largest personal shareholder of the company he founded 37 years ago and took public two years ago. Last week, Huntsman agreed to sell U.S.based commodity assets to Koch Industries Inc. for US$761 million, including the value of working capital and inventory. On Dec. 29, Huntsman sold U.K.based commodity-chemical assets to Saudi Basic Industries Corp. for US$685 million, and it sold some Port Neches, Texas, plants to Texas Petrochemicals LP in June for US$262 million. Upon completion of these sales, Huntsman will reduce purchases of petroleum-based materials such as benzene and naphtha to US$1.6 billion a year from US$4.7 billion. The asset sales, restructuring and new factories will widen profit margins to 15% of sales by the start of 2009 from about 9% last year.