Sunday, May 08, 2005
Purnendu Chatterjee as petrochem czar
In a quiet deal relatively unnoticed by the Indian media, The Chatterjee Group (led by old-time Soros buddy, Purnendu Chatterjee) bought Basell, the world's largest plastic polypropylene manufacturer from Royal Dutch-BASF in a deal worth $5.7 billion. This TCG deal, the largest corporate deal ever by an Indian entity, dwarfs all other buy-outs by Indian entities except perhaps L.N. Mittal's takeover of the International Steel Group last year. It'll be interesting to see what role Haldia Petrochemicals (part-owned by TCG) gets to play once this deal goes through and whether the West Bengal government will offload its stake in Haldia. Interestingly enough, it is being reported in some quarters that Marvin Bush (GWB's brother) and Winston Partners are among the financiers behind this takeover.
