Westlake Chemical's withdrawal of its $1.2 billion bid for Georgia Gulf is featured in this week's Material Insights video. Atlanta-based Georgia Gulf had rejected the second of Houston-based Westlake's two offers on Feb. 1. Nothing further had happened until May 4, when Westlake officially pulled its offer. Westlake now will sell off the stake of almost 5 percent of Georgia Gulf's common stock that it had acquired. The deal would have created North America's second-largest PVC resin maker. PFB Corp.'s purchase of the performance styrenics business of Nova Chemicals also is featured in this week's video. Nova will receive an undisclosed equity stake in PFB in exchange for the business, which has annual sales of almost $330 million and makes expanded polystyrene and styrenic copolymers at plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Both Nova and PFB are based in Calgary, Alberta. This week's video wraps up with news that Ineos Group is looking for a buyer for its high density polyethylene plants in France and Italy. The plants - in Sarralbe, France, and Rosignano, Italy each have about 440 million pounds of annual capacity, but lack integration in feedstocks. Ineos acquired both plants in 2005 when it bought the Innovene business of British Petroleum.
An explosion at La. olefins plant leaves 2 dead, 76 injured
June 17, 2013 1:17 pm ET
