HOECHST / CELANESE
Stock split scheduled for October / New industrial company to include more plastics
Shareholders of Hoechst AG (D-69526 Frankfurt) will meet at an extraordinary agm in July to vote on a split-off of industrial and life sciences activities before Hoechst merges with French group Rhone Poulenc SA (F-92408 Courbevoie Cedex) on 1 December 1999. The new Frankfurt-based Celanese AG will be larger than originally planned, taking in for the most part additional plastics businesses. This is because the accelerated timetable for the first major German-French fusion has left Hoechst too little time to divest its remaining industrial holdings.
Scheduled to start trading in October 1999, Celanese will have sales of around EUR 5.2bn and 16,000 employees, chairman-designate Claudio Sonder said at a press conference in Frankfurt. Alongside the “core businesses” of base chemicals and engineering plastics (led by POM), the enlarged group will take in OPP films producer Hoechst Trespaphan, Hoechst´s 50% share of Targor, its half of theVinnolit 50-50 PVC joint venture with Wacker Chemie and its 46% of Dyneon, the fluoropolymers jv with 3M, as well as a number of service and infrastructure companies.
For a better start to trading – Celanese will be listed on stock markets in Frankfurt and New York – the new company will be saddled with less of Hoechst´s debt than originally planned, EUR 1bn rather than the envisaged EUR 1.64bn. In the stock split, shareholders will be offered one Celanese share for each Hoechst share they currently own.
Sonder indicated that the bulk of the additional plastics activities will not have a permanent home within the new industrial grouping. Hoechst´s jv agreements with BASF and 3M, for example, contain “escape clauses,” in which the other partners have purchase options. As regards the OPP business, once slated for merger with Mobil Chemicals (Fairfax, Virginia / USA), the future Celanese chairman said “we intend to participate in the restructuring of this market.” He declined to indicate, however, whether any new deals are on the front burner.
Rhone Poulenc initially will contribute its remaining 68% of industrial chemicals and nylons subsidiary Rhodia to the new life sciences company it is forming with Hoechst, to be called Aventis S.A. and based at Strasbourg. But RP chairman Jean Rene Fourtou said Rhodia will be floated “before the end of this year.” Hoechst´s 45% stake in ClariantInternationalLtd (HQ: CH-4132 Muttenz) and its 50% share in Munich-based Wacker Chemie GmbH will also be “parked” with Aventis until they can be sold off. Hoechst chairman Jürgen Dormann will be chairman of this new company, Fourtou vice chairman.
Scheduled to start trading in October 1999, Celanese will have sales of around EUR 5.2bn and 16,000 employees, chairman-designate Claudio Sonder said at a press conference in Frankfurt. Alongside the “core businesses” of base chemicals and engineering plastics (led by POM), the enlarged group will take in OPP films producer Hoechst Trespaphan, Hoechst´s 50% share of Targor, its half of theVinnolit 50-50 PVC joint venture with Wacker Chemie and its 46% of Dyneon, the fluoropolymers jv with 3M, as well as a number of service and infrastructure companies.
For a better start to trading – Celanese will be listed on stock markets in Frankfurt and New York – the new company will be saddled with less of Hoechst´s debt than originally planned, EUR 1bn rather than the envisaged EUR 1.64bn. In the stock split, shareholders will be offered one Celanese share for each Hoechst share they currently own.
Sonder indicated that the bulk of the additional plastics activities will not have a permanent home within the new industrial grouping. Hoechst´s jv agreements with BASF and 3M, for example, contain “escape clauses,” in which the other partners have purchase options. As regards the OPP business, once slated for merger with Mobil Chemicals (Fairfax, Virginia / USA), the future Celanese chairman said “we intend to participate in the restructuring of this market.” He declined to indicate, however, whether any new deals are on the front burner.
Rhone Poulenc initially will contribute its remaining 68% of industrial chemicals and nylons subsidiary Rhodia to the new life sciences company it is forming with Hoechst, to be called Aventis S.A. and based at Strasbourg. But RP chairman Jean Rene Fourtou said Rhodia will be floated “before the end of this year.” Hoechst´s 45% stake in ClariantInternationalLtd (HQ: CH-4132 Muttenz) and its 50% share in Munich-based Wacker Chemie GmbH will also be “parked” with Aventis until they can be sold off. Hoechst chairman Jürgen Dormann will be chairman of this new company, Fourtou vice chairman.
31.05.1999 Plasteurope.com [18006]
Published on 31.05.1999