Jan. 4--"Beachfront property," proclaimed Dow Chemical Co. chief Andrew Liveris after agreeing to buy Philadelphia's Rohm & Haas Co., a big, independent specialty-chemical company, for $15.2 billion.

That was last summer, before the economic tsunami.

Liveris' deal for Rohm & Haas threatens to unravel as Dow Chemical's share price sank to multiyear lows last week and credit-rating agencies downgraded Dow's debt. Analysts are concerned about the rich price for Rohm & Haas amid the deepening recession.

It's bad news all around. The cyclical chemical business deteriorated so suddenly that one of the world's largest firms, the heavily indebted LyondellBasell Industries, said Wednesday that it could file for bankruptcy protection.

Many fear Dow, the nation's largest chemical company by revenue, won't find the legal wiggle room to negotiate a lower price for Rohm & Haas. Dow agreed to pay $78 a share, or double to triple what Rohm & Haas shares would trade without a buyout in place, experts say. Rohm's fast-growing electronics division, which supplies computer and flat-panel-display manufacturers with materials, made it a prized property.

Dow Chemical's stock-market capitalization last week plunged below the price it has agreed to pay for Rohm & Haas -- $14.2 billion compared with the $15.2 billion. The stock-market capitalization is the money that it would take to buy all of a company's common stock, and Dow's market cap shows the wear of a sinking stock price.

Dow stock rose 32 cents on Friday to $15.41 a share, but lost 20 percent on the week.

The Midland, Mich., company said Friday that no one was available for comment and that it had no new information.

Frank Mitsch of BB&T Capital Markets sent a newsletter earlier in the week headlined "Another Michigan Firm to Ask for a Bailout?"

Dow could borrow heavily for Rohm & Haas. But "if the scenario were to play out," Mitsch wrote, "we believe the [Dow Chemical] dividend would likely be a goner, and so could Dow."

Analyst Carol Levenson of Gimme Credit Publications said Dow's signed deal for Rohm & Haas was a "ridiculously pricey acquisition."

Other analysts and merger specialists say Rohm & Haas has a strong merger agreement, which was negotiated in July, and Dow would close on the deal or find itself forced to in a federal courtroom in Delaware.

The crisis erupted when the oil-rich Kuwait government last weekend canceled a joint venture with Dow Chemical that would have provided $7.5 billion for use in the Rohm & Haas deal. Plunging oil prices rattled the Kuwaitis.