ICI Pakistan plans to acquire 75pc stake in Lotte Chemical

KARACHI: ICI Pakistan Ltd., a company held by Lucky Cement, has announced intention to acquire approximately 75.01 percent shares of Lotte Chemical Pakistan Limited, a chemical company, a notification revealed on Monday.

The announcement resulted in buying interest in the Lotte Chemical shares that closed in the upper circuit during the day. A total of 7.995 million shares were traded at the stock exchange that closed higher by Rs1.67 per share to Rs25.79 per share from Rs1.20 per share.

Optimus Capital Management (Private) Limited placed the intention as the manager on behalf of ICI Pakistan Ltd. Both ICI Pakistan and Lotte Chemical made the announcement through notifications to the PSX Monday. Under the agreement, the ICI Pakistan may acquire 1.135 billion shares of Lotte Chemical, approximately 75.01 percent of the paid-up share capital.

ICI Pakistan is a public listed company, with over 75 years of existence in the country. It consists of five diverse businesses including soda ash, polyester, pharmaceutical, animal health and chemicals and agri-sciences.

It is engaged in the nutrition business through NutriCo Morinaga (Private) Limited. Lucky Cement Limited owns 55 percent shareholding of ICI Pakistan Limited while 12.01 percent shares are held by Yunus Textile Mills Limited.

The weighted average share price quoted on the securities exchange four weeks preceding the date of the public announcement of intention is Rs24.48 per share against the issued ordinary share of Rs10 each.

Lotte Chemical in the first quarter of 2022 announced a gross revenue of Rs20.332 billion with a Rs16.322 billion cost of sales. It posted Rs2.615 billion net profit for the quarter and announced earnings per share of Rs1.73 while it had escaped any dividend for this period.

In 2021, Lotte Chemical announced a profit after tax of Rs4.643 billion with gross revenue of Rs67.165 billion and Rs59.584 cost of sales. It announced Rs3.07 earnings per share and Rs1.5 dividend per share for this period.

The major shareholder of Lotte Chemical Pakistan Limited is Lotte Chemical Corporation, which holds over 1.135 billion shares, approximately 75.01 percent paid-up capital of it. Mr Sang Hyeon Lee is the chairman of Lotte Chemical Pakistan, Mr Young Dae Kim is the chief executive, while Tariq Nazir Vik is the executive of the company.

Lotte Chemical Corporation is a Korean company, which was founded in 1976 and developed into a global general chemical company through international scales and stable profit structures.

Korea’s representative chemical company has been growing into a ‘global top 7 chemical company’ by procuring product competitiveness based on its superior R&D capacities and expertise.