	arco arc spin off seen at mln dlrs atlantic richfield co considering a spin off of a pct interest in its chemical operations could gain about mln dlrs from the deal industry analysts estimated yesterday arco s stock jumped as much as five points on rumors it was spinning off the chemical operations based on about mln outstanding shares the market in its frenzy was valuing the spin off at about mln dlrs analysts said atlantic richfield aware of the rumors issued a statement around mid day that it was considering a sale of only pct of the unit leading investors to take profits after the announcement the company s stock retreated closing at up today it was off it was a smaller deal than expected and somewhat disappointing said analyst george baker at smith barney he said rumors of the spin off had been around for a couple of days baker said the unit was very profitable but it wasn t getting the type of exposure atlantic richfield sought and its value was not reflected in the company s stock price industry analyst richard pzena of sanford c bernstein said the unit had operating earnings of mln dlrs last year and he expected it to earn about mln dlrs this year based on a multiple of times earnings which pzena says chemical companies now sell for the entire unit is worth about three billion dlrs putting the pct interest at around to mln dlrs pzena said he thought the company was selling the stake because chemical margins had peaked and he speculated the company would use the proceeds to pay down debt but he added the possibility remained the deal would fall through yesterday arco said the proposal had not yet been presented to its board the chemical unit last year had revenues of billion dlrs reuter 
