greenwave3 (52.72)

DOW, just walk away

February 02, 2009 – Comments (1) | RELATED TICKERS: DOW , ROH , NCX

DOW should walk away from it's deal with Rohm & Hass. First and foremost, doing so would probably stave off an impending credit rating downgrade. It cannot really afford to take out a $13+ billion bridge loan to close the deal. You can already assume the dividend will be cut very soon, if not at tomorrow's earnings call.

Instead of paying a gigantic premium to acquire ROH, DOW should pay the severance and look for a more cost-effective venture or acquisition. The ROH deal was expensive, even when the indexes were trading some 40-50% higher. Now it looks just plain silly.

Thanks to the same declining market conditions that lead to the ridiculous valuation involved in the ROH-DOW deal, many other smaller specialty chemical companies have gone up for fire sale. Nova (NCX) has been crushed recently. With a market cap of around $150M, NCX could represent $7-8 billion worth of revenue (hint, ROH only boasts $8-9 billion of annual revenue). American Pacific (APFC) is another intriguing small specialty chemical producer. 

Foolish thoughts?