GLOBAL chemical company Huntsman was last night reported to be in talks with potential suitors over a £2.4bn buyout.

The group, which employs more than 1,500 people in the North-East, saw shares rise by more than 12 per cent after the report in New Yorks Wall Street Journal.

The takeover discussions are said to be with private equity firms and corporate buyers, it was reported. A spokeswoman for Huntsman said last night: "We can't offer comment on market speculation."

The Wall Street Journal report suggested that buyout firm Apollo Management was considered to be a leading candidate in the talks.

US company Huntsman's main UK operations are in Teesside, where it has three different businesses. It is also building a polythene plant at Wilton, which will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs, and safeguard up to 8,000 across the chemical sector.

Its Teesside operations at Greatham, near Hartlepool, Wilton near Redcar and Haverton Hill, Billingham, are crucial to the region's chemical industry and underpin thousands more jobs.

Utah-based Huntsman - formerly the worlds biggest privately-owned chemical company - was floated on the New York Stock Exchange almost a year ago.

However, the Huntsman family are still at the helm of the company, and they, along with private equity firm MatlinPatterson, own 58.7 per cent of the companys outstanding shares. It was close to filing for bankruptcy in 2001 before MatlinPatterson stepped in and bought up much of its debt, and 35 per cent of its shares. It is Matlin which is believed to be searching for buyers.

Jon Huntsman, now a billionaire, founded the company in the 1970s and made his fortune selling containers for McDonald's Big Macs. The company saved 1,600 jobs on Teesside in 1999 when it bought a large slice of ICI's operations there.

* Reports suggested yesterday that another major chemicals employer in the region had been put up for sale with a price tag of about £1.4bn.

Acrylics company Lucite, which employs 300 at sites in Teesside and Newton Aycliffe, is up for sale after receiving several unsolicited takeover approaches.

The news came after suggestions that ICI was looking to sell one of its remaining Teesside divisions, Uniqema, which employs about 350 people at Wilton.