Local chemical maker nears big merger
Huntsman Corp. close to joining Swiss company in $14 billion deal
The Woodlands chemical maker Huntsman Corp. is close to combining with Swiss company Clariant in a so-called merger of equals to create one of the world’s largest specialty chemicals companies, according news reports.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, first reported Sunday the two companies could combine in a $14 billion, allstock deal to create HuntsmanClariant. Huntsman Chief Executive Peter Huntsman would serve as the CEO with Clariant AG CEO Harold Rottmann as the chairman, the Journal reported. Clariant shareholders would hold about 52 percent of the combined company, and both companies would have equal seats on the board.
Huntsman spokesman Gary Chapman declined to comment Sunday.
But Peter Huntsman in recent interviews with the Houston Chronicle has suggested that the company was considering such a deal as a way to grow. He has repeatedly expressed his interest in dealmaking throughout this year.
“We are probably more open to the idea of a potential merger than we would have been in the past,” Huntsman said in a previous interview. “This company is poised to expand, and I like to think mergers is one of those areas.”
Huntsman has a market capitalization value of $6.4 billion versus Clariant’s value of just more than $7 billion.
The two companies combine to employ more than 32,000 people in over 100 countries. Huntsman has a workforce of about
15,000 people in more than 30 countries.
Locally, Huntsman employs 1,000 in The Woodlands, including 300 at its nearby Advanced Technology Center. That’s not counting additional workers at Huntsman’s regional manufacturing facilities in Houston, Conroe, Alvin, Dayton, Port Neches and Freeport.
Huntsman is in the process of spinning off its pigments business into a separate publicly traded entity, called Venator Materials Corp. The name comes from the Latin word for hunting. Venator will primarily house its division that makes titanium dioxide, a chemical used to make pigments for paints, food coloring and other products.
Peter Huntsman said earlier that any mergers or acquisitions didn’t necessarily have to wait for the Venator deal to finalize.
The legacy Huntsman company, meanwhile, has recently expanded plants in both Port Neches and Conroe to make more proprietary chemicals that go into laundry detergents, cosmetics and other consumer goods.
After Huntsman went public in 2005, Peter Huntsman moved the family business from Utah, where it was founded by his father, Jon Sr., to The Woodlands, where it would be closer to its plants, customers and supplies of natural gas that provide the feedstock for petrochemicals.
The company first hit it big more than more than 40 years ago making the cheap, plastic “clamshell” containers for McDonald’s Big Mac burgers but now focuses more on the specialty chemicals, plastics, foams and composite materials that go into Boeing airplanes, BMW cars and Nike shoes. Huntsman began the switch from common base chemicals to specialty products a decade ago.