SQM stake could fetch US$2.5bn - report

The sale of a stake in Chilean fertilizer and lithium miner SQM could fetch between US$2bn and US$2.5bn, according to local news reports.

So far two companies have presented proposals for the share that holding firm Oro Blanco, one of SQM's indirect controllers, put on sale of Pampa Calichera, another of SQM's indirect controllers, last December.

Oro Blanco and Pampa Calichera are two of the so-called cascada companies, a complex network of holding companies through which SQM's former chairman Julio Ponce Lerou has controlled the company for decades.

Pampa Calichera controls 23% of SQM and Oro Blanco has 88.6% of Pampa Calichera.

The website of TV station Tele 13 said that China's Tianqui Lithium and Shanshan are among those bidding for the stake, while a third unnamed company has expressed interest but requested more time to present its offer to Itaú Argentina, the bank in charge of the sale.

Oro Blanco announced in December it was launching a formal, competitive and private process in which it would invite potential interested parties to present their offers to acquire its stake in Pampa Calichera, adding that it was open to receiving offers from non-invitees. The company gave itself six months to carry out the process.

An unnamed source close to the process told Reuters that the process is likely to extend for a few months, as there is no fixed timeline.

SQM, one of the world's leading fertilizer companies, is currently engulfed in an ongoing campaign financing and tax fraud scandal, which resulted in the exit of Ponce Lerou in April last year.

Additionally, state development agency Corfo is seeking a resolution to an arbitration process it launched in 2014 aimed at revoking SQM's concessions. Corfo claims that SQM has failed to properly pay the agency the amount established in an agreement signed in 1993, while SQM has said it has complied fully with the contract.