Bloomberg: Akzo Nobel CEO Solicited For Potential $7 Bln Axalta Bid

(RTTNews) - Dutch paint maker Akzo Nobel NV's (AKZOY, AKZOY.PK) Chief Executive Officer Ton Buechner has been solicited for a potential $7 billion acquisition of car-coatings company Axalta Coating Systems, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Axalta Coating, a former unit of Chemicals giant EI DuPont de Nemours & Co. (DD), commonly called DuPont, was acquired by private equity firm Carlyle Group LP (CG) for $4.9 billion in February 2013. The Philadelphia-based company has 35 manufacturing plants around the world in addition to seven R&D centers.

Axalta has more than 120,000 customers, including 3,900 distributors, and reported 2013 revenues of $4.3 billion. The company filed for an IPO in August 2014, with Citigroup, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Deutsche Bank Securities and J.P. Morgan are acting as lead book-running managers for the proposed IPO.

According to the Bloomberg report, Carlyle Group is exploring a sale of the company alongside a planned initial public offering that could raise an initial $1 billion.

Akzo Nobel and U.S. rival Sherwin-Williams Co. (SHW) are seen as potential buyers of Axalta, a supplier of coatings for cars to automakers General Motors Co. (GM) and Daimler AG.

Akzo Nobel is currently focused on cutting costs and improving margins after its $17 billion acquisition of Imperial Chemical Industries in 2007.

In July, Akzo Nobel reported a decline in profit for the second quarter from last year, as revenues declined amid adverse currency as well as a divestment.

The company's net income attributable to shareholders for the second quarter was 205 million euros, or $276 million, down from 429 million euros last year. Revenue declined 4 percent to 3.71 billion euros from 3.87 billion euros, mainly due to 5 percent adverse currency effects.

AKZOY closed Friday's trading at $23.45, down $0.03 or 0.13 percent on a volume of 84,073 shares.