DuPont and The Dow Chemical Company announced that Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) has granted conditional regulatory approval of their proposed merger.
Brazil’s OK is crucial as it is a major market for the combined companies’ agricultural business. That business, as well as two others, will be spun off into public companies following the merger.
The approval of the merger is subject to global and national conditions that have also been a part of approvals in Europe and China.
The remedies include the divestment of a portion of Dow AgroSciences’ corn seed business in Brazil, including some seed processing plants and seed research centers, a copy of Dow AgroSciences’ Brazilian corn germplasm bank, the Morgan brand and a license for the use of the Dow Seeds brand for a certain period of time.
This comes along with the previously announced divestment of certain parts of DuPont’s global crop protection portfolio and R&D pipeline and organization and Dow’s global Ethylene Acrylic Acid copolymers and ionomers business.
DuPont and FMC will swap assets, with FMC acquiring the crop protection assets, including a research site near Newark.
The companies continue to anticipate closing the merger between August 1 and September 1 with the intended spin-offs to occur within 18 months of closing.
The companies expect that the first step of the intended separation process will be the spin-off of the Materials Science Company, assuming such sequencing would allow for the completion of all intended spin-offs within 18 months of merger closing and would not adversely impact the value of spin-offs.
