New Delhi, March 09: Petrochemicals group LyondellBasell said it has rejected a 14.5-billion-dollar takeover bid by India’s Reliance that would have created one of world’s biggest groups in the sector.
Bankrupt Lyondell said it had opted to follow through on its own restructuring plan instead of accepting the offer from Reliance Industries, India’s biggest private sector firm.
“Lyondell’s supervisory board concluded… that proceeding with the present plan is in the best interest of creditors and the estate,” LyondellBasell spokesman David Harpole told Dow Jones Newswires late Monday.
Reliance is unlikely to pursue the deal any further as people familiar with the matter indicated last week that the company was unwilling to increase its bid for the chemical maker and oil refiner any further.
In a filing to a New York court in the United States, where Lyondell is under bankruptcy protection, the group said it had other “concerns” about Reliance’s proposal.
It said Reliance was seeking effective control even though it would own only a minority position and did not compensate Rotterdam-based LyondellBasell for the costs tied to pursuing a tie-up.
Reliance, which has been building up an acquisitions warchest, is also interested in buying Canadian firm Value Creation, which controls oil sands in the country’s western Alberta province, media reports say.
Cash-rich Indian companies have been stepping up plans for big cross-border acquisitions. The country’s biggest mobile phone company, Bharti Airtel, recently announced an offer for the African assets of Kuwaiti operator Zain.
Reliance saw opportunities from combining its petrochemical activities with Lyondell’s top-end plastics business, which would also give the Indian firm a global footprint and distribution network, analysts say.
—Agencies