Creation date: 30 May 2017
FMC Corporation and DuPont have announced the signing of a definitive agreement for FMC to acquire a portion of DuPont’s Crop Protection business it must divest to comply with the European Commission ruling related to its merger with The Dow Chemical Company.
FMC will acquire DuPont’s global chewing pest insecticide portfolio, its’ global cereal broadleaf herbicides, and a substantial portion of DuPont’s global crop protection R&D capabilities.
After closing of the acquisition, FMC Agricultural Solutions will become the fifth largest crop protection chemical company in the world by revenue.
“The team at FMC is tremendously excited by the recent announcement,” said Peter Close, country head for FMC Australasia. “The acquired products will significantly broaden our offering to customers and strengthen our portfolio in Australia.”
“The combination of DuPont’s market-leading products and world-class R&D capabilities with our own product portfolio, robust pipeline and formulation expertise will place FMC in market leading positions in a number of crop segments,” said Close.
George Saville, head of sales for FMC Australasia, added “We’ll be able to serve our customers better and accelerate the pace at which we bring new solutions to the market.”
The acquired portion of DuPont’s crop protection business includes industry-leading selective insecticide products including Alcator®, Exirel® and Avatar®. These selective insecticides are highly complementary to FMC’s existing broad-spectrum insecticide portfolio.
Also included in the acquired portfolio are DuPont’s global cereal broadleaf herbicides, consisting of nine active ingredients and multiple formulated products. This herbicide portfolio comes with strong, recognised brands and DuPont’s proprietary PrecisionPac® technology.
“These products will diversify our crop herbicide portfolio, as well as increasing the balance of pre-emergent and post-emergent applications,” said Saville.
The acquisition will bring DuPont’s world-class discovery and development organisation, including its Delaware crop protection research headquarters, 14 regional development labs and related regulatory capabilities. This includes a pipeline of 15 synthetic active ingredients currently in development, covering insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, and an extensive library of 1.8 million synthetic compounds.
The majority of DuPont’s crop protection research workforce will transfer to FMC as part of this transaction.
“We expect that a number of DuPont Australia’s staff will join the FMC team once the acquisition is finalised,” said Close. “They’ll certainly be very welcome additions to our rapidly growing commercial organisation.”
The global transaction is subject to the closing of the Dow and DuPont merger, as well as customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
Closing is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2017.
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