Dow Completes Acquisition of Rohm and Haas
The Dow Chemical Company today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Rohm and Haas. The acquisition is a major step in Dow's strategy of growing its performance products and specialty portfolio to deliver more consistent earnings growth. Combining the two organizations' best-in-class technologies, broad geographic reach and strong market channels will create a $14.0 billion diversified business portfolio, which will be called Dow's Advanced Materials division. The division is intended to achieve $3.0 billion in additional value growth opportunities, as well as annual cost synergies of $1.3 billion.
Rohm and Haas is the key element in Dow's new Advanced Materials division. Pierre Brondeau has been named president and CEO of this division, which includes: Coatings, Building and Construction, Specialty Materials, Adhesives and Functional Polymers, and Electronic Materials.
Continued Progress on De-leveraging
Dow has decided to exercise its option to have the Haas Family Trusts make an additional $500 million investment in Dow equity. This is consistent with Dow's disciplined plan to retire the bridge loan for the financing of the Rohm and Haas transaction by the end of 2009. This will be accomplished through the sale of assets, issuance of equity and debt, and the previously announced reduction in the Company's dividend to preserve cash.
Regulatory Approvals
On January 23, 2009, Dow entered into a consent order with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that permitted the completion of the acquisition, provided that certain actions to address potential anticompetitive effects are implemented within 240 days of the deal closing. Specifically, under the terms of that agreement, Dow is required to divest the following businesses:
- Clear Lake, Texas, acrylic acid and esters plant and the related glacial acrylic acid, butyl acrylate, and ethyl acrylate businesses in North, Central, and South America
- UCAR Emulsion Systems specialty latex businesses in North America
- North American hollow plastic pigment business (also referred to as the hollow sphere particle business)
The consent order also includes an Order to Hold Separate which requires Dow to maintain the competitiveness of these businesses pending their divestiture and to ensure that confidential information is not transferred between these businesses and the other businesses of Dow.
Dow has already initiated procedures to comply with the FTC consent order and has been actively seeking buyers for the impacted businesses. The acquisition previously received regulatory clearance from the European Commission on January 8, 2009.
Effective today, Rohm and Haas common stock will cease trading.
quoted from: New Kaznak
