London (Platts)--7Nov2012/836 pm EST/136 GMT
Spanish polyethylene terephthalate producer La Seda de Barcelona may sell its PET plants to raise new capital if it cannot attract a minority partner to help expand its operations, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday. La Seda in May approved a Eur40 million ($51 million) capital increase to take place via the issue of 40 million one-euro shares. The increase was to be used to aid the company's growth, launch new products and expand in new markets, La Seda said. But the capital raising was unsuccessful and the company decided to abandon that route. La Seda now aims to find a partner for 25% of its PET business, but if it is unable to do so, it may consider selling some of its PET assets, the spokeswoman said. "We are searching for this partner but we've not found one yet," said the La Seda spokeswoman. "The economic situation is tough at the moment, which explains why it is taking some time in doing so. Plan A is to find a partner for 25% of the PET business." "It is a possibility we are working on," she said. "Plan B would be to sell one or some of the PET sites if in the first three months of 2013 we do not find a partner."--Brendan Daly, brendan_daly@platts.com --Edited by Richard Rubin, richard_rubin@platts.com