V&E Leads Westlake Chemical’s Efforts to Buy Georgia Gulf

by  Mark Curriden, Senior Legal Affairs Writer

Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp. has turned to Vinson & Elkins to help it in its unsolicited offer to buy competitor Georgia Gulf Chemicals for $1 billion.

Westlake is an intentional manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers and building products. The company is 69 percent owned by the Chao family.

In a letter delivered Friday to Georgia Gulf board members, Westlake Chemical CEO Albert Chao said he was “disappointed by your continued rejection of our proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Georgia Gulf Corporation (“Georgia Gulf”) for $30.00 per share in cash, which we first offered on September 20, 2011.”

V&E M&A partner Jeff Floyd and Capital Markets Partner Stephen Gill of Houston are Westlake’s leading legal advisors. Other V&E lawyers assisting are partners Billy Vigdor (antitrust), Larry Nettles (environmental), and David Stone (capital markets), and associates Kai Haakon Liekefett, Lande Spottswood, Atman Shukla, Alicia Burns-Wright and Yousri Omar.

Within hours of Westlake public releasing its offer, a handful of plaintiff securities litigation firms announced they would be filing a shareholder suit against Georgia Gulf for rejecting Westlake’s offer without bringing it to a shareholder vote.

Mark Curriden is senior writer for The Texas Lawbook and Writer in Resident at the SMU Dedman School of Law. More of this story can be found at www.texaslawbook.net