The Woodlands-based chemical company Huntsman Corp. announced late Wednesday that it agreed to sell its intermediates and surfactants units to Thailand’s Indorama Ventures for $2.076 billion to focus on its downstream and specialty businesses.
Huntsman general counsel and chief compliance officer David Stryker led the company’s in-house team. Associate general counsel Rachel Muir and Leo Guglielmi and corporate counsel Valerie Jorez provided “critical corporate support,” Stryker told The Texas Lawbook.
Stryker and associate general counsel Ron Brown also worked on intellectual property matters, “a heavy component of the deal,” Stryker said.
Kirkland & Ellis provided outside legal advice, with Houston corporate partner Doug Bacon and associates Erik Shoemaker and Patrick Moneypenny being part of the team.
Stryker – who worked at Kirkland from 1984 through 1994 in New York and Chicago – said he’s used the firm for litigation for years but didn’t bring it in on deal work until he hired New York partner David Fox for the Clariant merger a few years ago.
“Fox has built the premier public M&A practice group in the country there over the past decade,” he said, adding that New York partner Shawn O’Hargan “is just off the chart great.”
Indorama used its long time New Jersey-based firm Lowenstein Sandler on the purchase, including partners Nick San Filippo and Sam Kahn.
BofA Merrill Lynch was Huntsman’s financial advisor.
For more on the Huntsman-Indorama deal, read the story in the Houston Chronicle, a partner of The Texas Lawbook.