The Portuguese antitrust authority reports that on 30 March it received an application for the takeover of Artenius Portugal’s PET plant in Portalegre. According to the offer’s terms, Control PET SGPS (Lama / Portugal), a subsidiary of Imatosgil Investimentos, plans to buy all the shares held by La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona / Spain; www.laseda.com) in the 75,000 t/y plant. The exact purchase price remains unknown.

As the investment arm of the Portuguese entrepreneur family Matos Gil, Imatosgil has been engaged with La Seda for some time already. The Portuguese company has been in control of varying amounts of shares in the Spanish PET group since the beginning of the last decade. A scramble over controlling shares with investors from Oman brought Imatosgil’s shares in La Seda to more than 18% last year.

The Portuguese company has been considered a possible buyer of La Seda’s Turkish and Portuguese activities since 2009. At about the same time, the reeling Spanish group started looking to divest its PET plants in an effort to focus on its preform business. In this context, the company had originally planned to divest its Portalegre plant in the spring of 2010 – see Plasteurope.com of 23.12.2009 – but the negotiations have dragged on. The delay could be explained by economic factors. After all, in December last year, Portalegre-based Selenis Servicos – where Artenius Portugal controls 50% of shares – and two local polyester fibre manufactures were forced to file for bankruptcy.

The acquisition by Imatosgil is, in essence, a return. The Portuguese company, which controls the entire site (specifically the industrial park “Quinta de São Vicente”), had sold the plant to La Seda in 2005. Before that, the line had been part of Trevira, the successor of Hoechst’s polyester activities, which had acquired the plant in 1990. The plant was first founded in 1964 as Finicisa, a joint venture between ICI and Manuel Fino, who has meanwhile become one of Portugal’s most prominent builders.