Bayer's $62B Monsanto bid would dwarf Dow-DuPont farm sales giant
As ag giants consolidate
"Bayer AG offered $62 billion to buy Monsanto Co., deepening investor concern that it's stretching its finances" in a costly bid "to become the world's biggest seller of seeds and farm chemicals," writes Bloomberg here. Bayer statements here.
"Bayer bid $122 a share in cash," Bloomberg noted, and its stock "dropped as much as 3.6 percent," to 2014 levels, as investors were "spooked" by the potential cost.
The deal would create a $25 billion (yearly sales) corporate-farming giant, bigger than the $16 billion, Wilmington-based Dow-DuPont agricultural-sales combine planned by DuPont CEO Ed Breen, and the planned $15 billion Asia-Europe pesticide/seeds conglomerate combining ChemChina with Syngenta.
Ag sales at German chemical maker BASF, the other global giant in the business, total around $7 billion. Locally, DuPont has offices, labs and research facilities in northern Delaware; Dow has manufacturing plants around the Philadelphia area and in Newark, Del.; BASF has a factory in Newport, Del.