Financial Times: BASF/Shell to sell chemicals unit for $7bn
By David Firn, Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals Correspondent
Posted 6 August 04
BASF and Shell will put their Basell petrochemicals joint venture up for sale later this month, in what is expected to be one of the biggest chemicals auctions to date.
Basell, which makes polyolefins the building blocks for many plastics is valued at up to €6bn ($7.2bn). The potential sale of Basell is one of several transactions planned in the oil industry as BP and Total also take advantage of the upturn in commodity chemicals to sell non-core assets.
Basell returned to profit in the first half of this year on the back of rising industrial demand and buoyant commodity chemicals prices, after a loss in 2003 on turnover of €5.7bn.
“It’s picking up at the moment, but when things were structurally or cyclically weaker it wasn’t doing particularly well,” one industry analyst said on Thursday.
CSFB and Lazard are preparing an offer memorandum for the petrochemicals operator that will go out to interested parties later this month. The banks are understood to have received preliminary approaches from both trade and financial buyers.
BASF and Shell say an initial public offering or retaining the business are also options, but insiders point to a sale of the unit by the middle of next year. Private equity groups are seen as the most likely buyers because polyolefin industry buyers could face antitrust issues.
BP is consolidating its olefins and derivatives operations for a possible US IPO in the second half of next year. Total, the French oil group, is carving out the chlorochemicals, intermediates and performance product assets of Atofina, the petrochemicals business formed by the merger in 2000 of TotalFina and Elf Aquitaine.
BASF and Shell set up the 50:50 Basell joint venture in 2000 to create a global leader in polypropylene and the number one European polyethylene maker from what were considered to be two sub-scale operations.
Polyolefins are the backbone of the plastics industry, being used extensively in auto construction, packaging, fabrics and consumer goods. Basell is also a leading supplier of production technology and catalysts.
■ Total plans to return the €10bn proceeds from selling its stake in newly merged Sanofi-Aventis pharmaceutical group to shareholders, rather than spending it on acquisitions, Martin Arnold reports from Paris.
Announcing a 22 per cent increase in profits, Robert Castaigne, finance director, said that Total would sell its 13 per cent Sanofi stake in the “medium term”, once the company felt the price was attractive.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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