MOSCOW (MRC) -- Huntsman’s third-quarter earnings fell year on year on the back of weaker profitability for most divisions, but the US-headquartered firm expects the completed sale of its stake in pigments firm Venator to provide some uplift toward the end of the year, said the company.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell for all divisions other than polyurethanes (PU), with the sharpest fall for advanced materials with a 51% fall due to the global economic crisis vand customer destocking.
The sale of Huntsman’s remaining stake in Venator to SK Capital is expected to close before the end of the year, to provide USD250m in cash including a USD150m cash tax saving.
The sale of its India consumer adhesives business to Pidilite Industries for USD285m represents a multiple of 15 times business earnings, and is expected to close next week.
Third-quarter 2019 net income was hit by the agreement to sell its chemical intermediates businesses to Indorama Ventures, meaning that results from that business and the associated gain on the sale were treated as discounted operations until the deal closed in early January 2020.
As MRC informed earlier, Nanjing Jinling Huntsman, a joint venture between Huntsman and Sinopec Jinling, plans to close the propylene oxide plant in Nanjing (Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China) on November 1 for scheduled maintenance. This plant with a capacity of 240,000 tonnes/year of propylene oxide will be closed until approximately 25 November.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, overall PP production in Russia increased in January-July 2020 by 24% year on year to 1,063,700 tonne. ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the main increase in the output.
Huntsman Corporation is a publicly traded global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated and specialty chemicals with 2019 revenues of approximately $7 billion. Our chemical products number in the thousands and are sold worldwide to manufacturers serving a broad and diverse range of consumer and industrial end markets. We operate more than 70 manufacturing, R&D and operations facilities in approximately 30 countries and employ approximately 9,000 associates within our four distinct business divisions.
MRC