A giant Chinese chemical company is betting the farm on agriculture.
State-owned ChemChina said Wednesday it has offered a whopping $43 billion for the Swiss company Syngenta, which supplies pesticides and seeds.
If it goes through, the deal would be the largest overseas takeover ever carried out by a Chinese corporation.
It also raises tough questions for the major U.S. agribusiness company Monsanto, whose efforts to buy Syngenta last year were rebuffed.
The Swiss company’s board has embraced ChemChina’s bid and is recommending that shareholders accept the offer of $465 per ordinary share along with a special dividend of 5 Swiss francs (around $5) dependent on the deal closing.
Created 12 years ago out of a bunch of companies run by a government ministry, ChemChina has shown a strong appetite for overseas deals in Europe and beyond.
Last year, it bought the Italian tire maker Pirelli for roughly $8 billion. And it announced a $1 billion deal last month for a German company that makes machinery for processing rubber and plastics.
