merger

The 2016 acquisition by Bayer of seed and chemical giant Monsanto has turned out to be a rotten deal. Shares in the German company have fallen 30 percent since the $63 billion deal closed, and are now at just 50 percent of their value in 2015, when the company was Germany’s most valuable.

The farmer-members of the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery in Vermont voted overwhelmingly on Monday to merge with the nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America.

A new poll and report from the Konkurrenz Group found that the vast majority of farmers disapprove of the proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto. Nearly a thousand farmers, from 48 states, responded to the poll.

In a multibillion-dollar asset swap, Dow is selling part of its crop protection operation to FMC and and picking up nearly all of FMC's health and nutrition business. As part of the deal, FMC will acquire a Dow agricultural research center in Newark and turn it into the global research and development center for FMC, which is based in Philadelphia, says the Wilmington News Journal.

The administrative arm of the European Union approved the merger of Dow and DuPont based on their promises to divest some assets, says Deutsche Welle. It was the first decision on a wave of proposed consolidations that would reshape the seed and ag-chemical sector into a "big three," down from the six firms that now compete.

Two senior farm-state senators filed legislation to make USDA a permanent member of the high-powered federal panel that decides whether foreign investment in the United States would impair national security interests. The legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, would require the panel to consider the impact of a proposed foreign investment on U.S. food and agricultural systems.

To satisfy EU regulators, U.S.-based Dow and DuPont offered to sell part of DuPont's crop protection business along with its associated research and development and Dow's business in copolymers and ionomers, said the News Journal. The companies hope to complete their $130 billion merge in the first half of this year.

The $57 billion purchase of Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, by German pharmaceutical giant Bayer has the approval of Monsanto shareholders by a three-to-one vote, said the St. Louis-based company after a special meeting. Chief executive Hugh Grant said he was confident of U.S. antitrust approval of the deal, creating a seed and agricultural chemical behemoth.

The Justice Department review of the merger of Dow and DuPont is "pretty far down the road" and the arrival of Donald Trump as president is unlikely to affect the transaction, said DuPont chief executive Ed Breen in a Reuters interview. "I don't think it will have any impact," said Breen, who noted the review is being handled by career civil servants.

With state-owned ChemChina prepared to take over Syngenta, one of the largest seed companies in the world, Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley wants to know if the Chinese company would invoke sovereign immunity against lawsuits in U.S. courts. "If they fail to answer my questions, it ought to raise a big red flag with our regulators checking the antitrust laws against the mergers," Grassley told reporters according to DTN.

In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Montana Sen. Jon Tester says the government should deny on antitrust grounds Bayer's proposed $66 billion purchase of Monsanto, given that it would result in a company controlling nearly 30 percent of the world's seed market and a quarter of pesticide sales.

The seed and ag-chemical industry "is seemingly on the precipice of a significant structural transformation," says Senate Judiciary chairman Charles Grassley in remarks written for today's hearing on consolidation in the sector. Five of the "big six" companies are involved in mergers while two Canadian companies are combining to form the world's largest fertilizer company.

Ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on consolidation in the seed and ag chemical sector, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission say they will consider the combined impact of mergers as well as the import of each deal. If they go forward, the mergers would result in three dominant companies in the sector instead of the current six.

Two of the largest seed and agricultural chemical companies of the world, Bayer and Monsanto, will combine in a deal valued at $66 billion. Monsanto chief executive Hugh Grant said the merger, in which Bayer buys Monsanto for cash, will result in "an innovation engine that pairs Bayer’s crop protection portfolio with our world-class seeds and traits and digital agriculture tools to help growers overcome the obstacles of tomorrow."

Two Canadian firms, Potash Corp. and Agrium Inc., announced that they will merge, creating the world's largest crop-nutrient company, according to The Associated Press. The new company will have 20,000 employees, a market value of $36 billion and annual revenue of $20.6 billion. A name will be chosen before the deal closes next year, said the AP.

One of the largest dairy milk producers in Southeast Asia, Vietnam Dairy Products, "is in talks to acquire another U.S. company" as it expands its international presence, said Bloomberg. Vinamilk, as the company is known, became sole owner Driftwood Dairy in California earlier this year.