US private equity giant TPG financed a 300 million dollars capital increase per a minority stake in M&G Chemicals, a division of Italian chemical group Mossi&Ghisolfi and a leading global supplier of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (download here the press release).
The deal has been conducted by TPG through its TPG Opportunities Partners fund, which bought a stake of just less than 30% in M&G Chemicals capital, MF-Milano Finanza writes today.
Control of M&G Chemicals remain in the hands of the Ghisolfi family. Rothschild acted as financial advisor to M&G Chemicals.
Last December M&G Chemicals pulled its ipo on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange where the group aimed at floating a 30% stake of its capital and cashing about 4 billion Honk Kong dollars (or 500 million US dollars or 375 million euros), pricing M&G CHemicals share in a 1.65-1.95 dollars range. The deal with TPG is then to be read as an alternative solution to the pulled ipo.
The company employs more than 900 employees in 14 locations in six countries around the world. It is going to close 2014 with about 2 billion dollars in revenues, down from about 2.1 billions in 2013, and with an ebitda margin in a range of 8-10%. .
TPG and Mossi&Ghisolfi group have been working together for a while as back in October 2011 TPG Capital and TPG Biotech teamed up with Chemtex, a division of M&G group, in order to found a 250 million dollars joint venture, Beta Renewables (75% Chemtex and 25% TPG) aiming at distributing a special technology called Proesa that allows to produce sugars (a raw material for PET) a very competitive price, starting from non-food biomass instead that from oil derivatives.
M&G Chemicals’ ceo, Marco Ghisolfi, said: “This capital infusion will not only enable us to grow and solidify our position as a leader in the global PET market, but will also allow us to take advantage of market opportunities as they arise. M&G Chemicals remains committed to investing in the development of innovative PET products that serve the needs of our customers, both today and in the future” .
M&G Chemicals has several large expansion projects underway, including construction of the world’s largest integrated PTA/PET facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as a project in Fuyang City, China to develop and industrialize a green PET supply chain of raw materials from renewable sources (download here the press release).
Last June the Italian Government signed and agreement with Biochemtex, an other divison of M&G Chemicals, in order to develop three new plants to produce bioethanol in uSulcis, Termini Imerese and Manfredonia. Each plant is due to need 250 million euros of investments (download here ithe press release).
