Does 20% haircut make Dow Chemical attractive?

Filed under: Deals, Bad news, Newsletters, Dow Chemical (DOW), Stocks to Buy

I recently put together a report of stocks to avoid in 2009. In compiling the list, I used general themes that I thought would struggle during the coming year. At the top of the list were chemical companies.

Though not on the list of specific stocks to avoid, I certainly did consider calling out Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) as a stock to avoid in the coming year. That would have been insightful, as shares of DOW lost nearly 20% of their value due to the termination of a joint venture project in Kuwait

The proposed K-Dow Petrochemicals was formed to help Dow reduce exposure to the highly cyclical petrochemical plastics business. More importantly, the $17.4 billion venture was slated to provide Dow some much needed cash, including $7 billion up front.

That cash was going to be needed in Dow's yet-to-be-closed acquisition of Rohm and Haas Company (NYSE: ROH). That deal is currently valued at just over $15 billion and would have been much easier to swallow with the K-Dow deal intact.

Now, legitimate questions are being raised as to whether the Rohm and Haas deal will close. Dow is claiming, and had previously claimed, that it did not need the Kuwait deal to fund the acquisition.

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Does 20% haircut make Dow Chemical attractive? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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