In Biggest Ever Chinese Corporate Takeover, ChemChina Set To Buy Swiss Syngenta For $43 Billion

The ink was not yet dry on the seemingly endless Monsanto-Syngenta on again/off again takeover drama, when moments ago in a shocking development the newswires were lit up with news that a new, and very much unexpected, bidder has emerged for the Swiss pesticides giant Syngenta: China National Chemical Corp, or ChemChina as it is known, which according to WSJ and BBG is set to pay $43.7 billion to acquire a piece of Swiss corporate history.

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Moments ago?

That deal brokering has been going on for months! It's had extensive coverage in the financial media.

(I'd also take exception to Syngenta being described as "a piece of Swiss corporate history" -- the company was founded in 2000...)

I heard about this over two weeks ago from someone working at Syngenta and they'd known about it for some time already so it's not really that unexpected.

They were discussing the pros and cons on the Swiss news on the radio this morning.

Bloomberg reported on 15 December last year that talks between Syngenta and ChemChina had started in the second week of December.

I looked up "Syngenta" in the forum search box and found there was no thread on the subject of its possible sale to China.

Interesting. My only good experience with Swiss Syngenta is that my wife knows director and his secretary who sponsored us with freighting some charity sports equipment to Africa. Hope this takeover will be for mutual benefit!

If it wasn't on EF, it couldn't have happened!

I'm no expert on these things but I will be pleased if Monsanto (the other main contender) doesn't get its foot in the door of this one.

Syngenta IS a piece of the Swiss corporate history as among its Swiss parents are Geigy (founded in 1758), Ciba (founded in 1884) and Sandoz (founded 1876).

Amen to that. Monsanto would have been a disaster for the Swiss employees. Chem China will most likely leave things be in the short term and also open the door to the relatively untapped Chinese market.

Monsanto are not far behind, in fact to me, they have arranged the deal with ChemChina and I won't be surprise 18moths down the line the Chinesse to announce a share-sale to Monsanto or a daighter-company. It is difficult to trust any of the multy-nationals as greed is the fundation of everything for them.

Well, Chem China is state-owned... so besides the corporate greed can you expect a political perspective to it... China being for example very active in Africa. And I don't think Chinese officials make themselves the servants of Monsanto in any way that easily...

And ChemChina is privatising Syngenta, so a share sale to Monsanto seems somewhat unlikely.

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When talking about multibillion business deals, inevitably there is a small percentage of political insinuation to it. In today’s time is difficult to know who controls whom. We believe that the American government controls they people and it’s democracy but at times looks like that Wallstreet, Monsanto, etc. controls the White House. So if corporate impinge on the American government it will not be too difficult to push the Chinese government as well. A few years ago, China accounted for 30-40% of the American manufacturing, therefore I doubt they can say NO if asked for some kind of a favor. This is perhaps why for a moment I thought that Monsanto couldn’t purchase Syngenta directly, but via someone else this could become evident. And of course, slowly step by step… Nobody expected the Indian Tata to go big but they surprised the world in April 2008 when purchased Jaguar, Land Rover, Daimler, etc.


Indeed China has been very active in Africa but not only there. Last month they bought 12% stake in Swiss energy & Mercuria, in 2015 the Italian Pirelli and a few other smaller deals. Strategically the Chinese buy the land in Africa and the technology from the civilized world. Why… and is it only them?


To be honest I worry little about who owns Syngenta or Monsanto, because the leadership’s moral will remain minimal in any case, but what I am hugely concern is that the bees are vanishing and the fresh water supplies gets in control of the wrong people and institutions. Today we are friends and respect each other but tomorrow we may become enemies, due to our own ignorance.

It was in the news because Syngenta announced the details of the deal yesterday morning and that the board of directors were unanimously recommending the offer to shareholders.

http://www.syngenta.com/global/corpo.../160203-1.aspx

To offset the hilariously sensational tone of the ZH nutters, here is the original Bloomberg article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ord-43-billion

I for one am not so sure that ChemChina is somehow better than Monsanto. It's out of the frying pan and into the fire really. Once the parent company drains the knowhow it can move research and development to the much better controlled and cheaper Chinese mainland for example.

From a geopolitical perspective, I'd (still) rather have US overlords than Chinese ones.

Yes, I know — my point is that the "very much unexpected bidder" has been public knowledge for two months now.

Why the hell has everyone got it in for Monsanto? If you listen to some people it is the sole cause of autism, diabetes, chemtrails, cancer, and Chipotle's poor sourcing and food-handling. It's quite laughable.

Hopefully, this will pave the way for Golden Rice registration in China.

Having American overlords hasn't exactly been the blessing of the former ABB turbine and generator business that became Alstom and then GE.

In the world of big business, nobody has time for sentimentality. I don't think there's much difference between Chinese and Americans here.

Maybe the Chinese are actually better as they don't chase short-termist factors such as stock price but think long term if not ultra long term.