Huntsman-Hexion and Bad M&A Omens

WSJ colleague George Anders files this addendum to his Business column in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. What do people haggle about in the late stages of deal negotiations–when tempers are short and each side can take one or two final stabs at insisting that something must be changed or else the whole transaction is off? Some takeover targets revisit price one last time. Others bang the table for better treatment in terms of top-executive pay, job-security promises or the new name of the combined company. But when Hexion Specialty Chemicals last summer was negotiating its agreement to buy Huntsman, it seems as if both sides wanted to shore up their position in case the other side turned litigious. According to Hexion’s June 18 suit last month against Huntsman, filed in Delaware’s Chancery Court, the parties in 2007... [read full story]