Source: BASF
BASF has closed the acquisition of a range of businesses and assets from Bayer. The transaction is a strategic complement to BASF’s crop protection, biotech and digital farming activities and marks its entry into seed, non-selective herbicides and nematicide seed treatments.
“This strategic move adds excellent assets to our strong agricultural solutions portfolio and enhances our innovation potential,” says Martin Brudermüller, chairman of the board of executive directors and chief technology officer of BASF SE. “Overall, it ensures an even more comprehensive and attractive offering to our customers.”
“This acquisition transforms BASF in agriculture,” says Saori Dubourg, a member of the BASF board of executive directors who is responsible for the company’s Agricultural Solutions segment. “It strengthens our market position in agricultural solutions and creates new opportunities for growth. We are looking forward to our joint journey and warmly welcome the new colleagues to BASF.”
BASF signed agreements in October 2017 and April 2018 to acquire the businesses and assets Bayer offered to divest in the context of its acquisition of Monsanto, for an all-cash purchase price of €7.6 billion (about $8.8 billion U.S.), subject to certain adjustments at closing. About 4,500 employees join BASF through the acquisition. The agreements include Bayer’s global glufosinate-ammonium business; seeds businesses including traits, research and breeding capabilities, and trademarks for key row crops in select markets; the vegetable seeds business; the research and development platform for hybrid wheat; a range of seed treatment products; certain glyphosate-based herbicides in Europe, used predominantly for industrial applications; the complete digital farming platform xarvio; and certain non-selective herbicide and nematicide research projects. These transactions are now completed, except for the vegetable seeds business, for which closing is expected in mid-August.
Customers benefit from the acquisition, as they will have access to even more tools to increase their yields, crop quality and profitability.
“With strong solutions from seeds to harvest, enabled by even better R&D capabilities and scale, we will increase the competition in the market,” says Markus Heldt, president of BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division. “This means customers have a real choice, today and in the future. After months of preparing the seamless transfer of businesses and smooth onboarding of employees, everybody is keen to finally get started—as a new team and with our expanded business and capabilities.”
To reflect the expanded scope of its agriculture business, BASF has renamed the division from Crop Protection to Agricultural Solutions. In addition, the division has established a new global business unit for seeds and traits.