Huntsman falls 23% after Olin deal puts OlinHuntsman in The Woodlands
Huntsman fell 17.05% on June 16 after agreeing to an all stock merger with Olin that will base OlinHuntsman in The Woodlands. Sensei Biotherapeutics became Faeth Therapeutics and moved to Austin, and Texas insiders made small buys.
Olin and Huntsman announced their merger on June 16 and put the combined company's headquarters in The Woodlands, and the first verdict from the market landed on Huntsman's side of the deal. Huntsman (HUN) closed at $15.89 on June 15 and at $13.18 the next day, down 17.05%. By June 18, the last session of a week cut short by the Juneteenth holiday, it was at $12.07, down 23.32% from the June 12 close of $15.74. Those are Lone Star Index calculations from Yahoo Finance closes, and they're price moves only, since the stock also went ex dividend for $0.088 on June 15.
The terms explain a lot of it. Huntsman holders get 0.5476 Olin shares for each share they own in an all stock merger of equals, under the joint release Olin filed with the SEC on June 16. Olin had closed at $25.30 on June 15, so the ratio was worth about $13.85 a Huntsman share by our math, below where Huntsman had just traded. Olin fell too, 5.89% to $23.81 on June 16, per Yahoo Finance.
The deal
The new company will be called OlinHuntsman. Olin holders will own about 54.5% and Huntsman holders about 45.5%. Ken Lane, Olin's chief executive, will run it, and Peter Huntsman, now Huntsman's chairman, president and chief executive, becomes nonexecutive chairman. Huntsman's finance chief, Phil Lister, will hold that job at the combined company, and the ten seat board splits evenly between the two sides.
Management put combined 2025 revenue at about $12.5 billion. It's aiming for more than $400 million in synergies, though $100 million of that is raw material benefits that don't start until 2031. Closing is targeted for the first half of 2027 and needs regulators and both sets of shareholders.
"I'm excited by the opportunity to lead OlinHuntsman," Lane said in the release.
Olin's release carried a Clayton, Mo., dateline alongside The Woodlands. Huntsman's latest quarterly report lists The Woodlands as its address. Olin's holders will own the majority of a company based in Huntsman's hometown. We've logged it on the Relo Feed.
Our read
Huntsman holders didn't get a premium to the last trade, and the release more or less explains why. The 0.5476 ratio was set off 30 day volume weighted average prices as of the June 12 close, and Peter Huntsman said it delivers a premium relative to historical averages while smoothing out share price moves from the prior week's trading, per the joint release. That second part is the one that matters. At Olin's June 15 close the ratio was worth about $13.85, roughly 12.8% below Huntsman's $15.89 close that day by our math. Our read is that the deal was priced off an average that gave Huntsman no credit for its latest run, and the market marked the stock down toward the deal.
Why a company mostly owned by Olin holders lands in Huntsman's hometown is the Texas question, and the release doesn't answer it. It says OlinHuntsman will be headquartered in The Woodlands and gives no reason. It says nothing about Olin's Clayton office beyond the dateline and doesn't name a state of incorporation, so as far as the release goes this is a headquarters move, not a charter move. The companies' case rests on pairing Olin's chlorine and caustic soda with Huntsman's downstream products and formulation expertise, which they say will improve costs, margins and cash flow, per Olin's filing. None of that depends on where the head office sits. The merger proxy is where we'd look for the reasoning, and for whether Clayton keeps anything beyond a dateline.
A biotech changes its address to Austin
Sensei Biotherapeutics became Faeth Therapeutics on June 15 and moved its principal executive office from Rockville, Md., to Austin the same day, a current report filed June 15 shows. The change followed its purchase of Faeth, which closed in February. Anand Parikh is the new chief executive, and the stock started trading as FTH on June 16, per the company's announcement. It closed at $13.85 on June 15 and $17.82 on June 18, up 28.66% by our math from Yahoo Finance closes.
Insider buys
We pulled the Texas Form 4s filed on filings from June 15 through June 21 and kept only code P open market purchases by officers and directors of Texas companies. More than a dozen qualified. These are the ones above $50,000, and none was large.
| Company | Buyer | Trade date | Shares | Avg. price | Approx. value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spok Holdings (SPOK) | Todd Stein, director, through Braeside Capital | June 16 | 35,211 | $10.4145 | $366,705 |
| AECOM (ACM) | Lara Poloni, president | June 16 | 4,224 | $70.63 | $298,341 |
| Ring Energy (REI) | Sundip Johl, CFO | June 15 | 231,000 | $1.2071 | $278,840 |
| enCore Energy (EU) | Mark Pelizza, director | June 11 and 12 | 99,905 | $1.37 and $1.39 | $136,884 |
| HF Sinclair (DINO) | Rhoman Hardy, director | June 16 | 1,508 | $66.32 | $100,011 |
| United States Antimony (UAMY) | Jon Marinelli, director | June 15 | 12,500 | $7.45 | $93,125 |
| Expand Energy (EXE) | Michael Wichterich, interim CEO | June 12 | 1,000 | $88.90 | $88,900 |
| Ring Energy (REI) | Paul McKinney, CEO | June 15 | 50,000 | $1.19 | $59,500 |
| enCore Energy (EU) | Wayne Heili, director | June 12 | 35,000 | $1.44 | $50,400 |
Values are our math from the filings. Johl held 548,460 Ring shares after his purchase, and his chief executive, McKinney, held 4,158,463 after his. Pelizza's filing shows 238,238 shares held directly and another 443,332 in a family trust. Hardy's Form 4 leaves him with 15,037 HF Sinclair shares, and Marinelli's filing shows the 12,500 were his only holding. Stein's shares went to Braeside Capital, a fund whose manager he helps run. Poloni's filing leaves her with 153,446 AECOM shares. None of them checked the box for a preset trading plan. Ring lists The Woodlands on its latest quarterly report; AECOM, enCore, HF Sinclair and United States Antimony list Dallas, Spok lists Plano and Expand Energy lists Spring. Smaller buys came from directors at Matador Resources, First Financial Bankshares and Capital Southwest, Abundia Global Impact Group's chief executive and MSC Income Fund's finance chief.
Some big filings didn't make the cut. Elon Musk exercised 303,960,630 Tesla options at $23.34 on June 16, with 17,531,857 shares withheld to cover the cost, and his Form 4 says no shares were sold in the market. Haveli Investments, which files from an Austin address, bought Blend Labs stock, but Blend's quarterly report lists Novato, Calif. The full list sits on Insider Radar.
Elsewhere
Texas Instruments (TXN) rose 7.22% on the week, from $301.12 to $322.86, and almost all of it came on June 18, when it gained 6.95%. The Texas Stock Exchange posted its July rollout schedule on June 17, and the dates are below.
What to watch
- June 25: Dell holds its annual meeting, where shareholders vote on moving its legal home from Delaware to Texas, per its proxy statement.
- June 27: TXSE runs its final industry confidence test, under a May 6 trader alert.
- July 6: Test symbols start trading on TXSE, and the first live symbols follow July 10.
- Week of July 13: About 200 symbols go live, then about 3,000 the week after, with every listed symbol expected by July 31.
The Texas Exchanges page tracks the rollout.
Lone Star Index publishes research, not investment advice.