Huntsman liking new bid?

SALT LAKE CITY — Huntsman Corp.'s board considers a rival $6 billion cash offer from an affiliate of a private-equity firm superior to the bid that the chemical maker accepted last week from a Dutch company.

Apollo Management's Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, said Friday that it had been informed of Huntsman's assessment. Hexion offered $27.25 per share earlier this week.

Huntsman had previously accepted a $25.25 a share offer — about $5.6 billion — from Basell, a Dutch holding of U.S. industrialist Len Blavatnik's Access Industries.

"Our board, through its advisers, continues to be in contact with both sides," Huntsman Corp. spokesman Russell Stolle said from the company's administrative headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas. The company is based in Salt Lake City but operates from the Houston area.

"The board has not agreed to the Hexion proposal. Nor has it changed its recommendation regarding the Basell agreement," Stolle said Friday.

Huntsman has notified Basell it will continue to recommend the current deal to shareholders for three business days but may change its recommendation if Basell does not raise its offer, Hexion said. Basell has until the close of business Tuesday to sweeten its offer.

Basell did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Anyone buying Huntsman also would assume about $4 billion in debt.

Fortune magazine lists Huntsman's annual revenue at $13.1 billion. Hexion is listed as the 16th-largest chemical company, with revenue of $5.2 billion.

Shares of Huntsman rose 54 cents, or 2 percent, to $28 Friday — above the price offered by either bidder.

The company's roots date back to 1970, when Jon Huntsman Sr. left Dow Chemical Co. to start the Huntsman Container Corp., which pioneered the clamshell container for the Big Mac.

He said last week that the Basell deal would yield nearly $1.5 billion cash for his family.

He said he had just transferred $600 million worth of stock to the Huntsman Foundation, a major benefactor of the family's Huntsman Cancer Institute and Hospital on the campus of the University of Utah.