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20 December 2007
MADRID – Plastics firm La Seda de Barcelona said Wednesday it had agreed to acquire Spanish oil firm Cepsa’s unit Intercontinental Química for EUR 595 million.
La Seda said it would pay for the Cepsa plastics unit in cash and shares and would carry out a capital increase worth €500 million, EUR 217.5 million of which would go to Cepsa. It did not say what size of stake in La Seda this would give the oil company. The plastics firm currently has 626.8 million outstanding shares.
La Seda’s shares fell heavily on the news. The capital increase will heavily dilute the holdings of current shareholders. The stock closed down 8.21 percent at EUR 1.79.
Cepsa’s Interquisa unit produces purified terephthalic acid (PTA), an input to the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which in turn is used to make food and drinks containers. La Seda is aiming to become one of the largest manufacturers of PET in Europe.
Interquisa has a plant in the Cádiz area in southern Spain, which produces 580,000 tons of PTA a year. It also has a 51-percent stake in Interquisa Canada, which has a PTA plant in Montreal manufacturing 520,000 tons a year of PTA.
The Cádiz plant is connected to La Seda’s Artenius San Roque PET facility, which it bought from Eastman in May.
[Copyright EL PAÍS, SL./ Adrián Soto 2007]
Subject: Spanish news