ANDOC Raises New Offer for Covestro

On December 19, according to Reuters, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is preparing to make its latest acquisition offer to Covestro at a price of approximately 60 euros per share.

That could value the German plastics and chemicals maker at about 11.3 billion euros.

Previously, ADNOC’s acquisition of Covestro has been unable to take place due to insufficient quotations. However, since the project with OMV has been basically finalized, the negotiations may gain more momentum.

Acquisition event history

On June 20, Reuters reported that ADNOC had approached Covestro with an acquisition proposal worth more than 10 billion euros. This informal bid was equivalent to about 55 euros per share. Not long after the news broke, Bloomberg News broke the news that Covestro rejected ADNOC’s initial acquisition proposal on the grounds that the proposed valuation was not worthy of further negotiations.

On July 18, people familiar with the matter said that ADNOC had raised its acquisition bid for Covestro to about 11 billion euros. This new acquisition bid raised Covestro to about 57 euros per share, and ADNOC also hopes to use this to persuade Covestro is involved in the negotiations.

From August to September, the news that ADNOC planned to acquire Covestro was discussed in the industry, and there was also news that "Covestro has once again rejected ADNOC's new offer of 13 billion euros."

On September 8, Covestro issued a press release, publicly confirming that it would conduct an open discussion on the acquisition of ADNOC. The Management Board of Covestro will also discuss in particular how to ensure the further implementation of future- and sustainability-oriented corporate strategies, including corresponding corporate governance regulations.