Abu Dhabi's national oil company ADNOC is expected to soon make a formal offer to buy Germany's chemicals giant Covestro for $15.9 billion (14.4 billion euros) including debt, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources with knowledge of the plan.
ADNOC, which pumps nearly all the oil in OPEC's major producer the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been looking to buy into chemicals and petrochemicals to diversify its downstream portfolio.
The company has been pursuing Covestro for a year.
If the German firm accepts the offer, the deal would be one of the largest cash transactions in the chemicals industry ever, as well as the first time a company part of the DAX 40 blue-chip index in Germany would be acquired by a state company from the Gulf.
In June, ADNOC's year-long efforts to acquire Covestro moved a step closer to a successful conclusion after Covestro it had decided to "enter into concrete negotiations with Adnoc" and open its books for due diligence on a proposed $12.9 billion (11.7 billion euros) deal.
Covestro's board entered into these talks with ADNOC regarding a potential transaction after Abu Dhabi's state energy firm raised its offer.
"We have made good progress in our discussions with Adnoc. Therefore, we have decided to enter into concrete transaction negotiations with Adnoc," Markus Steilemann, CEO of Covestro, said in June.
ADNOC first approached Covestro a year ago. In September 2023, Covestro launched open-ended talks with the Abu Dhabi firm.
ADNOC is pursuing deals to expand in international markets, including in petrochemicals, as the major oil producers in the Middle East are keen to expand the markets for their oil and products and lock in future demand.
But in May, ADNOC terminated talks to buy a stake in Brazil's petrochemicals company Braskem from its controlling company Novonor.
At the end of last year, the state oil giant of the United Arab Emirates proposed a non-binding offer to buy a stake in Braskem, in an offer implying an equity value of $2.14 billion (10.5 billion Brazilian reals) for Novonor's 38.3% stake in the Brazilian company.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More