Financial Times: Basell sold in €4.4bn deal: “Royal Dutch/Shell and BASF have sold their plastics joint venture, Basell, for €4.4bn ($5.7bn) to a consortium led by Access Industries of the US and India's Chatterjee Group.” (ShellNews.net) 6 May 05

By James Boxell

Published: May 6 2005

Royal Dutch/Shell and BASF have sold their plastics joint venture, Basell, for €4.4bn ($5.7bn) to a consortium led by Access Industries of the US and India's Chatterjee Group.

Access is controlled by Leonard Blavatnik, the Russian billionaire investor, while Chatterjee owns Haldia Petrochemicals of India. The consortium beat a rival bid from Iran's National Petrochemical Company, which said it had lost because of opposition from the US government to a deal. The purchase price includes €2.2bn of debt.

The deal needs to be approved by competition authorities. Basell has its headquarters in the Netherlands and employs about 6,600 employees mostly in Europe and North America. It made sales of €6.7bn last year. James Boxell, London

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