RELIANCE OFFERS TO BUY LYONDELL FOR OVER $12 BLN

India’s Reliance Industries is offering about $12 billion to buy a controlling interest in bankrupt chemical company LyondellBasell Industries to create one of the largest petrochemical firm in the world, two sources with direct knowledge of the deal said.

“The offer is in the vicinity of about $10 to $12 billion,” one source said, while another said it was around the upper end of the band. The two sources declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The deal, if closed, will make it one of the largest overseas acquisitions by an Indian company. In 2007, Tata Steel bought Anglo-Dutch Corus steel maker for $13 billion.

On Saturday LyondellBasell said Indian energy giant Reliance Industries has made a non-binding cash offer to buy a controlling interest and the offer represented a potential alternative to its previously filed reorganisation plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Reliance said it had made a preliminary non-binding offer to acquire, for cash, a controlling interest in LyondellBasell upon its emergence from Chapter 11.

Reuters/Livemint