Best known as a pharmaceutical company, Bayer may be considering a takeover bid for Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, in a consolidation wave that Monsanto inaugurated but did not consummate a year ago, said USA Today. Bayer has a large seed and crop-protection portfolio.
The potential merger was reported first by Bloomberg, which said Bayer-Monsanto would become the world’s large seed and agricultural chemical company. A Bayer-Monsanto combination would be valued nearly as highly as Dow Chemical’s deal with DuPont at the end of 2015. USA Today cited an estimate of $65 billion for Bayer to acquire Monsanto.
It would come on the heels of the $43-billion deal announced in February for state-owned ChemChina to buy Syngenta, another of the major handful of leading seed and agricultural chemical companies in the world.
Monsanto started the merger wave with its unsuccessful bid for Syngenta. After that setback, the St. Louis-based company said it no longer was interested in large-scale acquisitions, said Reuters. The news agency said BASF also was interested in buying Monsanto.
A Bayer-Monsanto deal would face U.S. antitrust review, said Reuters. “Bayer is No. 2 in crop chemicals, with an 18 percent market share, according to industry data. The largest, Syngenta, has a 19 percent share. Monsanto is the leader in seeds, with a 26 percent market share, followed by DuPont, with 21 percent.”