More bidders for Dow's Styron?

Last week the news was that South Korea's Lotte Co. Ltd. was considering buying Dow Chemical Co.'s styrenics and polycarbonate business. Today, Reuters is reporting that others are still in the hunt. The unit, dubbed Styron Corp, could still end up in the hands of a private equity buyer, or a strategic buyer other than Lotte. According to the report, potential buyers for Styron were asked today to reconfirm their interest, "in order to narrow the field of buyers." The story attributes that information to unnamed sources. The report also includes a comment from Dow spokesman Bob Plishka, who told the wire service on Friday that the company was still on schedule to sell the business during this quarter, and that there are strategic buyers interested in the business. This has the appearance of Reuters catching up with last week's Dow Jones report on Styron. In the process, it looks like the Reuters reporters discovered some new details about the sale. Where there's smoke, there's fire -- so let's expect a deal of some sort to be announced in the next three weeks. At least this time we won't be waiting on approval from Kuwait...