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ICI sells acrylics unit
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October 4, 1999: 8:44 a.m. ET
Chemical producer gets $834M from Ineos for Belgian-based subsidiary
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LONDON (CNNfn) - ICI sold its acrylics business to Ineos, a venture capital-backed company, Monday in a deal valued at 505 million pounds ($834 million).
The sale of the Belgium-based unit is the latest in a series of divestments by Britain's largest chemical company.
ICI (ICI) has shed businesses worth more than 6 billion pounds in an effort to erase a mountainous debt load taken on when it spent 5 billion pounds acquiring the specialty chemical business of Unilever in 1997.
At the end of June, ICI's debt was down to 3.2 billion pounds from 4.2 billion at the end of 1998.
The Unilever deal marked a watershed for ICI, as it sought to reposition itself as a specialty chemicals company and move away from its traditional reliance on basic chemicals.
The disposal of these operations has taken longer than anticipated however, partly due to the rejection of a deal with Du Pont (DD) by U.S. regulators. The Tioxide business was eventually bought by the privately held American company Huntsman.
Last October, another deal with W.R. Grace (GRA) to sell ICI's minerals activities came to naught after regulators expressed concern.
The acrylics business sold to Ineos generated revenue of 525 million pounds during 1998, and made a profit of 31 million pounds. It employs 2,000 people in 15 manufacturing facilities in Asia, the Americas and Europe.
As the pace of ICI's asset sales has increased, so investors have returned to the stock, after a period of very disappointing share price performance. ICI shares rose 3 percent to 665 pence in Monday midday trading.
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ICI
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