Chatterjee faces differences back home

07-May-05

Purnendu Chatterjee led consortium has been declared the winner in the bid for Basell Polyolefins, a 50:50 joint venture between Royal Dutch or Shell and BASF. The Basell transaction will take some time, subject to approval from European Commission and relevant clearances. Purnendu Chatterjee, principal promoter of Haldia Petrochemicals is at loggerheads with the West Bengal government on the participation of Haldia Petrochemicals in the 4.5 billion Euro acquisition of Basell Polyolefins. The West Bengal government has indicated that it does not want Haldia to take part in the consortium led by the Chatterjee group, expressing that the acquisition is too big for Haldia. Chatterjee desires Haldia to be part of this acquisition and has even had senior officials of the company conduct the due diligence exercise.TCG will have to acquire the stake of the Bengal government to include Haldia in the consortium. The government wants an exit from Haldia at this juncture, and has offered to sell out its entire stake to The Chatterjee Group (TCG) for Rs 30 a share. TCG, however, values Haldia at Rs 17-19 a share. It is expected that on conclusion of the Basell deal, Chatterjee will turn to the problem of differences with the Bengal government, that could take several months and rounds of negotiation to settle.