ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss chemicals maker Clariant's (>> Clariant) 20 largest shareholders with the exception of activist investor White Tale Holdings do not oppose a planned $20 billion merger with peer Huntsman Corp (>> Huntsman Corporation), Chief Executive Hariolf Kottmann said on Thursday.

"We've spoken to our top 20 investors - who represent more than 50 percent of our share capital - multiple times," Kottmann said in an interview with Reuters. "We didn't experience a single investor who rejected the deal."

Clariant earlier on Thursday said the merger was on track to close late this year or early next despite criticism from activist investor White Tale Holdings, which increased its stake to more than 10 percent in July.

Kottmann also said Clariant could foresee divesting 25 percent of its portfolio including its Pigments and Masterbatches businesses following the merger.

"We've always said that we could part from these items when the time is right," the chief executive added.

The group expects the negative impact from raw materials costs to lessen in the second half of the year as price increases kick in, mitigating margin pressure from oil-derived inputs like ethylene and propylene, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Jany said.

(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi and Oliver Hirt; Editing by Michael Shields)

Stocks treated in this article : Huntsman Corporation, Clariant