Crop Protection Mergers: Entering the Endgame

One year ago, plenty of people within the ag market were openly wondering what the industry would look like once — and if — all the proposed crop protection product companies mergers were to go through. Now, after months and months of jumping through regulatory hoops across the globe, it appears that we may have finally entered the endgame for this process.

Firstly, it appears that ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta Crop Pro­tection will be receiving its final sign-off this month. Most of the regulatory bodies across the world the company has sought approval from have agreed to the deal, including China, the European Union (EU), and the U.S. To complete the deal, however, ChemChina is selling a trio of crop protection products it currently produces to AMVAC, including paraquat.

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Secondly, the proposed “merger of equals” between Dow and DuPont has received its regulatory blessing from the EU — which many experts saw as a possible stumbling block to this deal happening — providing it sell several crop protection products from the DuPont side of the business, along with the majority of that company’s research and development pipeline. FMC Corp. has already agreed to purchase these assets from DuPont once the merger is finalized.

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Lastly, most market watchers believe now that Dow-DuPont has received EU approval, possible objections to the proposed pairing of Bayer and Monsanto will likewise disappear, providing the companies divest certain assets for the sake of fair competition. Reportedly, Bayer and Monsanto are already shopping certain products to this end, including Bayer’s LibertyLink glufosinate-resistant cropping system.

So when all the dust finally settles, the previous Big Six will be down to a Big Four. Only it won’t be quite that cut and dry.
For one thing, many popular crop protection and seed products will have new owners. Furthermore, with its purchase of DuPont’s products, FMC will have vaulted itself into “the fifth largest crop protection chemical company in the world by revenue, with estimated annual revenue of approximately $3.8 billion,” according to a company press release.

And perhaps, the look of one other legacy Big Six player, BASF, will be completely different. In fact, many within the market predict that the German company will end up purchasing at least some of the assets Bayer and Monsanto sell, including seed.

All this promises to drastically re-shape the agricultural landscape going forward. “I think it’s safe to say that when you look at companies like BASF and FMC in 2018, they will likely look completely different than they do today in what products they can offer customers,” says George Secor, President/CEO of Sunrise Cooperative, Fremont, OH.

I couldn’t agree more. New owners could mean new emphasis on some older brands. And in today’s market, that probably isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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