After months of courting Covestro, the oil giant Adnoc from Abu Dhabi has found an open door at the plastics group.

Covestro will start concrete negotiations with Adnoc about a possible takeover, the Leverkusen-based company announced on Monday. The oil company has held out the prospect of an offer of EUR 62 per share, subject to the results of the audit of Covestro's books. The Covestro Board of Management assumes that a "common basic understanding" can be reached with Adnoc on the core issues of a possible transaction, including the company's growth strategy.

Covestro has been courted by Adnoc since the summer of last year and confirmed the start of open-ended talks in September. According to insiders, the oil company increased its informal non-binding offer to around EUR 60 per share in December, but did not achieve a breakthrough. Since then, the plastics group has only repeatedly confirmed that it is in open-ended talks with Adnoc.

(Report by Patricia Weiß and Yousef Saba, edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).