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Bayer CEO: Monsanto Acquisition Will Close by Year-End
USAgNet - 02/23/2017

The chief executive of German chemical conglomerate Bayer AG said Wednesday that he was confident the company's planned $57 billion acquisition of U.S. seed maker Monsanto Co. would overcome any regulatory obstacles and close by the end of the year, despite delays with U.S. and European antitrust authorities. Dow Jones reports that Werner Baumann, speaking at the company's annual earnings conference, said Bayer was in the process of responding to a second request for information from the U.S. Department of Justice. He also said the company had pushed back plans to officially file for regulatory approval with the European Commission to the second quarter of this year following a request by officials for new documents on the transaction.

"We remain confident that we will be granted all the necessary clearances," Mr. Baumann said. "It's not very much of a delay. This is perfectly normal," he added.

Bayer filed for approval with the Justice Department at the end of 2016 and had initially planned to file with the EC during the first quarter of this year. The company has already applied for clearance from around two-thirds of roughly 30 national regulatory agencies, the company said.

The planned acquisition of Monsanto comes amid weak market conditions and a wave of consolidation in the global agrochemical industry. A merger between Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co., as well as China National Chemical Corp.'s takeover of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG are also under regulatory review by U.S. and European officials.

Those deals are further along in the regulatory process and decisions on them could influence regulators' view of Bayer's bid for Monsanto, experts say.

The transaction would create the world's No. 1 supplier by sales of both seeds and pesticides, creating a "one-stop solution for farmers" that regulators could see as undermining competition, Ioannis Lianos, a professor and head of global competition law and public policy at University College London, said recently.


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