Kuwait to Sell Dow's Petchem JV Shares to Public

Kuwait is mulling plans to offer the public shares in the joint ventures Dow Chemical is seeking to divest, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA has reported.

KUNA said Asaad al-Saad, CEO of the Kuwaiti government's Petrochemical Industries Co (PIC) had told a news conference that initial public offerings would be launched to sell the shares.

Consultants are to be hired to assess the size of Dow's assets in Kuwait, the executive is quoted as saying, adding that the US market's largest chemical player will remain a strategic partner of PIC,

Under pressure from an activist investor, Dow chief Andrew Liveris last week said the group would reduce its equity positions in its Kuwaiti ventures as part of a plan aimed at shedding assets worth $7.5-8 billion by 2016.

Dow's investments in the Middle East country include a stake in Equate, a joint venture with PIC and two other local partners, Boubyan Petrochemical Co and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company, as well as in two of its subsidiaries and in MEG Global.

In the recent past, Kuwait's government is said to have shown renewed interest in offering shares in state-controlled assets to the public as a means of sharing the country's oil wealth with its citizens and impose market more discipline on companies.

In October, sovereign wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority said it had would resume selling stakes in large enterprises to the public in the first half of 2015.

KUNA noted that Dow's divestment plans were unrelated to a dispute with the US group over K-Dow, the failed plastics joint venture with PIC. Kuwaiti canceled plans for the jv abruptly in early 2009, shortly before it was to start business.  Four years later, Dow received $2.2 billion in damages after an international arbitrator ruled in its favor.