BASF to buy Bayer seeds and herbicides
€5.9bn sale will help satisfy competition regulators’ worries over Bayer–Monsanto merger
Chemicals giant BASF has agreed to buy a significant chunk of Bayer’s seeds and crop protection businesses, as Bayer looks to assuage regulators’ concerns over market dominance and reduction in choice when it merges with Monsanto.
The €5.9 billion (£5.2 billion) cash deal covers Bayer’s non-selective herbicide glufosinate – the main competitor to Monsanto’s glyphosate (Roundup) – as well as seeds for cotton, soybeans and oilseed rape. It also covers Bayer’s breeding and agricultural biotechnology programmes for these crops, including traits that grant resistance to glufosinate.