Lotte Chemical Bids for Jurong Aromatics
South Korea’s Lotte Chemical is looking to buy Singapore’s Jurong Aromatics Corp. (JAC), according to local media reports. Lotte said in a Jan. 19 filing to the South Korean stock exchange it had been shortlisted on Jan. 10. This followed a letter of intent submitted earlier this month to acquire the troubled Singapore petrochemical company.
Debt problems forced JAC into receivership in September 2015. The company had also halted production for about 18 months until the summer of 2016 to fix a technical issue at its refining and aromatics complex, which produces 800,000 t/y of paraxylene, 438,000 t/y of benzene and 200,000 t/y of orthoxylene.
At least six interested parties are reported to have entered a second round of bidding for JAC, with bids in the range of $1 billion to $2 billion.
Lotte’s bid for JAC comes as the Seoul-headquartered retail-to-chemicals group seeks to normalize operations following the indictment last October of chairman Shin Dong-bin and other family members on charges of embezzling funds and breaches of trust. The group’s vice chairman, Lee In-Won, was found dead in an apparent suicide last September, just hours before he was due to be questioned by the Korean state prosecutor about corruption.
The scandal derailed Lotte’s bid last year for US-based Axiall, which finally went to Westlake Chemical for $2.33 billion.
