According to foreign media reports, after rejecting the takeover offer from Germany’s Bayer AG last month, Monsanto Co has resumed discussions with Bayer and other companies on “strategic options” due to performance pressure. Currently, potential options for Monsanto include BASF and related businesses spun off from the Dow/DuPont merger. Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant said the company will remain a trusted partner in the industry, and he pledged to continue to actively pursue development opportunities.
As for when it will provide information on the progress of its acquisition with Bayer, Monsanto said there is no new information yet, but pointed out that negotiations have been ongoing in the past few weeks.
It is understood that in the past year, due to the continued decline in agricultural product prices and the tightening issues caused by farmers’ income pressure, several large-scale transactions have occurred in the global seed and pesticide industry. Last year, Dow Chemical and DuPont announced a merger, and in February, ChemChina acquired Syngenta for $43 billion.
Companies are constantly exploring ways to sell assets to help them solve the problem of poor market performance or the continued development of non-core businesses.
However, two weeks after it rejected the Bayer acquisition, Monsanto still has not opened a new chapter, so it is still possible that it will eventually be owned by Bayer. Bayer seems to have no plans to raise prices. Therefore, the final direction cannot be fully determined yet.
