Crop Protection Companies: The Consolidation Ripples Continue
March 26, 2018 Throw a pebble in a pond of water and the ripples will continue to spread out from the center for quite some time. This is apparently what is currently happening in the crop protection business when it comes to consolidation.
For the past three years almost, agriculture has been eagerly watching all the moves made by the largest crop protection companies to merge their operations together. In a few cases, these consolidations went relatively smoothly, with asset sales leading to the needed regulatory approvals from various countries around the globe. In other cases, the debate over which assets should be divested shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
At the recent Commodity Classic show in California, one such merged company – DowDuPont – announced that the company’s planned spin-off of its agricultural holdings will be called Corteva. Shortly after this event, Syngenta (now part of the ChemChina family) announced it had completed the sale of a portfolio of products to Nufarm, fulfilling a requirement made to the European Commission to complete its merger.
Loading ...And then there’s Bayer-Monsanto. Since this proposed deal was first announced back in spring 2016, the two companies have been trying to move things forward as quickly as possible. To satisfy regulators, Bayer agreed early on to sell its LibertyLink seed and associated glufosinate business to BASF. Once European Commission regulators stepped in, Bayer also agreed to off-load its vegetable seed business to BASF. This move, along with promising to share data with BASF, has reportedly satisfied the European Commission to approve the deal with Monsanto.
Now, however, word has come down that the U.S. Justice Department would like more asset sales before agreeing to the Bayer-Monsanto merger. What these assets are remains to be seen as negotiations between the two sides are currently ongoing. But this is likely to delay any definitive Bayer-Monsanto pairing until at least the middle of 2018.
And the ripples continue . . .
Subscribe Today For
