The US Federal Trade Commission said that it was requiring the companies to divest three types of pesticides in the US as a condition for completing their deal

This, along with the two other planned big agrochemical merger/takeovers, is bad news for farmers and consumers, who will face less choice of seeds and a bigger push towards GMOs and their associated pesticides.
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ChemChina wins US approval for $43 billion Syngenta deal

by Aoife White and David McLaughlin
Bloomberg, 4 April 2017
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/chemchina-wins-u-s-approval-for-43-billion-syngenta-takeover-j13z8ty8

* FTC had asked for more information; deal awaits EU review
* Pesticide takeover would be China’s largest foreign purchase

China National Chemical Corp. won U.S. antitrust approval for its $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG, bringing China’s largest foreign acquisition one step closer to the finish line.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it was requiring the companies to divest three types of pesticides in the U.S. as a condition for completing their deal. China’s antitrust authorities are also reviewing the proposed tie-up.

“This represents a major step towards the closing of the transaction, which is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2017,” Basel-based Syngenta said in a statement Wednesday.

Both the U.S. and the European Union took a close look at the deal, with the European Commission opening an in-depth investigation last year. It cited concerns that the transaction might lead to higher prices and reduced choice for crop protection products sold to farmers.

Syngenta rose 1.4 percent to 453.70 Swiss francs at 9:05 a.m. in Zurich. ChemChina’s offer values the stock at about 470.86 francs. Syngenta traded almost 94 francs below the offer price in November on concern that regulators would block the deal. That gap now has narrowed to about 17.16 francs as investors grew increasingly confident it would survive scrutiny.

The EU has an April 18 deadline to end its review. The deal also is still subject to approvals from China, India and Mexico. The companies have said they expect to close their deal by the end of June.

Big Deals

The takeover, announced a year ago, is one of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry. Dow Chemical Co.’s bid to merge with DuPont Co. cleared its biggest hurdle last week when it won EU approval with hefty concessions. Bayer AG still needs approval for its purchase of Monsanto Co. The combined transactions would whittle down six industry players to three behemoths: one American, one German and one Chinese.

If the deal is completed, ChemChina Chairman Ren Jianxin would become a head of a chemicals giant that sells products as varied as rubber tires, pesticides and genetically modified crop seeds.

Behind state-owned ChemChina’s pursuit of Syngenta are China’s ambitions for food security as a growing middle class consumes more grain-intensive meat and as farmland is converted to housing and golf courses. Syngenta would provide China with global access to farmers from Brazil to the U.K.

Syngenta Headquarters

“Syngenta will stay Syngenta” and will keep its headquarters in Basel, the company’s chief executive officer, Erik Fyrwald, said in a Bloomberg interview last month. He said that he expected to keep his job and that he had been told that ChemChina management wouldn’t be coming over to Syngenta.

“We’re not integrating with ChemChina,” Fyrwald said. “There’ll be ChemChina members coming onto our board. The chairman will be Chairman Ren from ChemChina. But we fully expect to operate as we do today.”

ChemChina’s offer for Syngenta was China’s biggest overseas deal announced last year, when Chinese companies disclosed an unprecedented $248 billion of acquisitions outside its borders, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But late last year, Chinese authorities began scrutinizing cross-border transactions to help stem the yuan from weakening further.

The deal comes amid a wave of Chinese investment overseas, setting off concerns in the U.S. Chinese foreign direct investment in America reached a record $45.6 billion in 2016, according to data provided by research firm Rhodium Group.

"Trade Abuse"

President Donald Trump has ordered a study to identify “trade abuse” that contributes to U.S. trade deficits with foreign countries ahead of a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China this week. He has previously accused China of carrying out unfair trade practices that hurt U.S. workers and has called for tariffs on Chinese goods.

The ChemChina-Syngenta deal was cleared by a U.S. national security panel last August, removing what had been seen as the biggest hurdle to the deal. The FTC has jurisdiction over the takeover because Syngenta sells its products in the U.S. The company got more than a quarter of its revenue in 2015 from seeds and crop protection in North America. The company also has several research and production facilities in the U.S.