'The Lavera petrochemical assets and businesses, together with the other French and Italian assets of O&P South, have been sold by INEOS Group Holdings S.A. ('IGH') to a new subsidiary of INEOS AG on 1 July 2014 for a total consideration of €200 million.
These arrangements have been put in place as part of a proposed restructuring plan for these businesses, which have underperformed historically. Average EBITDA for this group of businesses during the last 3 years has been €3 million pa and average operating cash outflow has been €39 million pa.
The proposed restructuring plan includes changes to the corporate governance structure for the Lavera site assets and infrastructure with the objective of improving the reliability and cost base of this site going forward. In addition the downstream assets at the Lavera complex will form a separate standalone finance group. It is envisaged that the consideration for the sale, which will initially be left on a loan account, will be settled in cash later this year, This cash consideration will help IGH fund the planned purchase of the 50% interest in the Rafnes, Norway ethylene cracker from Kerling plc, which has been previously announced, and which is contingent on the closing of Kerling's chlorvinyls joint venture with Solvay.
Accordingly these assets and businesses no longer form part of the Restricted Group of IGH for the purposes of IGH's term loan and bond investors.