Mossi Ghisolfi is for sale: Versalis, Total and Chinese industrial groups are interested

Mossi Ghisolfi is for sale. According to different rumors in Italy, Versalis, the chemical division of the oil giant Eni, and various European (such as the French oil colossus Total) and Asian industrial groups would be interested in acquiring the Italian chemical company which is one of the world’s largest PET manufacturer with a capacity of nearly 1.6 million tonnes per year and plants in Brazil, Mexico and the United States.

The Mossi Ghisolfi crisis has emerged because of the rising costs of the Corpus Christi plant in Texas, with a financial debt growth at 1.8 billion at the end of 2016 from 1.2 billion at the end of 2015. The debt of Italian activities is about €500-600 million, of which approximately 200 million is with Italian banking groups (including Unicredit, Intesa Sanpaolo and BancoBpm). In the US, the debt (in particular with major banks such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank) would be about one billion dollars.

The sale of the group headquartered in Tortona (Northwestern Italy) with a turnover of $1.9 billion is part of two debt restructuring plans, one in the US and one in Italy, aimed at rebalancing the financial situation and identify new investors. In the USA, the company entered Chapter 11 and companies such as the Thailandese Indorama, the Indonesian Reliance Industries and the Mexican Alpek would be interested in getting their hands on the American assets.

In Italy, where is located also the Mossi Ghisolfi’s plant for second generation bioethanol, the companies which expressed their interest would be Versalis (which would be joined by Boston Consulting as strategic advisor) and some big oil companies, such as Total, and other Chinese groups, interested in the new technology developed by Beta Renewables (owned by Mossi Ghisolfi). The auction for the Italian assets would still be at the stage of non-binding bids, but in the coming weeks it will release access to the data room for bids that are considered more interesting and the deadline for submission of binding bids will be fixed.

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