OSLO: CF Industries Holdings Inc said it will buy OCI NV’s North American and Dutch plants for about $6-billion, nearly ten months after the U.S. company’s merger talks with Yara International ASA fell apart.
The deal, which excludes OCI’s plants in Egypt and Algeria, is for OCI’s nitrogen plants in Geleen in the Netherlands and Wever, Iowa besides the company’s interest in an ammonia and methanol complex in Beaumont, Texas.
CF Industries is buying OCI’s global distribution business based in Dubai.
CF, which is also assuming $2-billion of OCI’s debt, will become a subsidiary of a new holding company based in the United Kingdom after the deal, the company said.
OCI said in November it planned to spin off its construction and engineering business and list it in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in the first quarter of 2015.
The merger talks were first reported by the Wall Street Journal last month.
CF Industries ended merger talks with Norway’s Yara International after the companies failed to agree on the terms of a deal that would have created a global fertilizer maker worth about $30-billion.
