Chatterjee Group-Haldia group set to buy Basell

By agencies   |   Thursday, 05 May 2005, 19:30 IST
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MUMBAI: The Purnendu Chatterjee group’s Haldia Petrochemicals and a clutch of foreign investors including the Blackstone group and a New York-based Russian billionaire, are likely to buy Basell Polyolefins, the plastics company owned by Royal Dutch/Shell and BASF, global media reports said. The deal could be worth more than $5 billion and could be announced over the next few days, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal appeared more likely after Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC) said that it could not buy plastics firm Basell from Shell and BASF due to U.S. pressures, the ISNA news agency reported. “Although NPC won all aspects of the Basell tender, due to U.S. pressures, we are unofficially told Iran cannot buy Basell,” the semi-official news agency quoted NPC managing director Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh as saying. The rejection of the Iranian bid could open the door to a group of investors led by U.S. based Purnendu Chatterjee and Haldia Petrochemicals to buy the world’s leading maker of polypropylene in a deal estimated at about $5.7 billion. A source close to the situation said that the Indian group was now the preferred bidder and a deal could be reached by the weekend. If successful, this will be the largest-ever overseas transaction in which Indian companies have participated. The Chatterjee group and Haldia Petrochemicals are teaming up with the New York based Blackstone and Access Industries, owned by Russian-born oil billionaire Leonard Blavatnik. Blackstone was initially expected to be the senior partner in the consortium, but its participation is now believed to have been reduced. Sources close to the deal said the agreement between Blackstone and the Chatterjee group now calls for a reduced role for Blackstone if the consortium wins. The exact amount to be paid by each group is not clear, but the foreign partners are expected to foot most of the bill.

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