Bloomberg is reporting today that shares of Ciba Holding AG rose sharply today thanks to speculation that a merger may be in the works with rival Clariant AG.
The story seems pretty speculative -- it's based on the news that Clariant CEO Jan Secher had resigned, coupled with conjecture that company Chairman Juerg Witmer may be inclined to seek a merger with Ciba.
Still, if it's true, this would be a deal of special interest to a lot of folks in the plastics industry, especially in the compounding sector. Bloomberg notes that both companies "have struggled since 2000 with reorganizations, unsuccessful purchases and increased Asian competition."
This isn't the first time that Ciba and Clariant have been named in takeover rumor stories, Remember a year ago, when a Swiss newspaper reported that Huntsman Corp. considered both companies attractive takeover candidates? That one sure did not pan out!
Comments (2)
Putting the two worst performing specialty chemicials companies together and multiply the construction zones won't address a single problem they're facing.
- high commoditization
- increasing raw material cost
- pricing issues
- fragmentation of customer base and internal processes
- way too many products in the pipeline
- due diligence issues from 1998 are still there to a 100%, mainly long term liabilities with old dump and productions sites
A merger would be the worst idea ever and would just buy them a year of time, that's it.
Either of them being swallowed up by a chemicals giant like Dow, BASF or Sabic would be another matter though.
Posted by intret | September 6, 2008 7:50 AM
Posted on September 6, 2008 07:50
Clariant TLP & PA if taken over by Dow Chemicals will be the Best Possibility . Ciba is already taken over by Basf as on todate .
Posted by Ashim Ghosh | September 22, 2008 9:25 PM
Posted on September 22, 2008 21:25