On Top Of Everything Else, SABIC Now Has Another Problem -- Profitability -- July 30, 2019

I am re-posting this as a stand-alone. This is a huge story on so many levels.

The Salman Plan is tracked here; linked at the sidebar at the right.

Oh-oh: SABIC profit sinks to lowest in ten years. We've been talking about this ever since we started blogging One never likes to see "profit" and "plunged" in same sentence. From Bloomberg:

• first very in very first sentence in the story: plunged
• SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corp) 2Q19 profit plunged  to lowest level since 2009
• net income dropped to $565 million (riyal/dollar = 3.75)
• the average estimate was $900 million
• net income one year ago: almost $2 billion
• Two other data points from the article:
• The petrochemicals maker said last week it suspended talks with Clariant AG on their high-performance plastics venture a day after the Swiss company’s CEO Ernesto Occhiello unexpectedly quit. Sabic cited "current unfavorable market conditions" for halting talks and said it’s looking forward to continuing the discussions once conditions improve.
• Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, is in the process of buying a majority stake in Sabic from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund for $69.1 billion. The Middle East’s biggest-ever deal had been first mooted last year after the initial public offering of Aramco was postponed.