Celanese, Sika plan sales to clear deals with regulators

Celanese is making a concession to antitrust regulators to help clear its $11 billion purchase of DuPont’s engineering polymer unit, which was announced in February. To satisfy the European Commission’s concern that the deal would create too dominant a player in thermoplastic copolyesters, Celanese has offered to sell its thermoplastic copolyester business, and a plant in Ferrara, Italy, to Taro Plast, an Italian maker of engineering plastics. The block copolymers have both thermoplastic and elastomeric properties and are used heavily in the auto industry. Separately, to smoothe UK approval of Sika’s $5.9 billion purchase of MBCC—BASF’s former construction chemical business—Sika and MBCC have offered to divest the latter’s chemical admixture business in the UK, Europe, and elsewhere. UK regulators will now assess whether such measures will satisfy their concerns.