Huntsman shares haven't reflected the full value of the company's differentiated businesses, which include advanced materials, polyurethanes and performance products, Huntsman said. The company will continue to evaluate alternatives to realize the potential of those businesses, he said.

"We have said since the early days of our IPO that a major part of the business plan was to invest in our differentiated businesses," Olsen said Sunday. "It is our intention to expand and grow those as the opportunities present themselves," including potential acquisitions, he said. Selling the units is not in the plan, Olsen said.

Huntsman's polyurethanes unit has one of the industry's most attractive products in MDI, or diphenylmethane diisocyanate, which has 20 percent profit margins and sales that are growing at 6 percent to 8 percent a year, Deutsche Bank analyst David Begleiter said last week in a note to clients. Huntsman is the world's largest producer of MDI, used to make foam insulation and furniture.

Huntsman is adding MDI production capacity in Asia, which could erode profit margins, Jeffries analyst Alexander said. Improved performance in MDI, the company's "crown jewel," as well as the advanced materials unit, could boost investors' perception of the company's value, he said.

"What we need to see is a couple quarters of better-than-expected results in those two segments," Alexander said.

Jon Huntsman founded the company in 1970 as a container maker, creating the Styrofoam "clamshell" boxes for McDonald's Big Mac hamburgers in 1974. His debt-financed acquisitions over the next two decades boosted 2004 sales to $11.5 billion on products such as laundry detergent ingredients, gasoline additives and plastics for car interiors.

Matlin got his stake by purchasing discounted Huntsman debt in 2001, when the company was overleveraged and near bankruptcy, which he subsequently traded for equity. His MatlinPatterson Asset Management holds 35 percent of the shares, and the Huntsman family owns 24 percent. Jon Huntsman's elder son, Jon Huntsman Jr., 45, is the governor of Utah, and the younger son, Peter Huntsman, 42, is chief executive officer of Huntsman Corp.

MDI helped Huntsman almost double polyurethanes profit in the third quarter to $193.7 million. Polyurethanes are "the key strategic interest in any takeover," JP Morgan's Zekauskas said in a note to clients last week.