(Reuters) – A group of Syngenta shareholders said it opposes any sale of the company to China’s state-owned ChemChina and called for the ousting of the Swiss agrichemical group’s leadership.
In a letter to the Basler Zeitung newspaper, the managing director of the group that says it was speaking after surveying holders of about 10 percent of Syngenta’s capital attacked Chairman Michel Demare.
“The board of directors is in a cul de sac from which it cannot exit on its own,” Folke Rauscher wrote. “So the only alternative is a comprehensive renewal of the board of directors at the forthcoming annual meeting.”
Demare said last week that Syngenta was in talks about a possible merger and was weighing a number of options. He had said last month that the crop chemicals and seeds company was in talks with ChemChina, U.S. seeds giant Monsanto and others.
“One can justifiably ask whether the board has really thought through the consequences of nationalising Syngenta through a sale to a state-owned enterprise of a communist country,” Rauscher wrote.
“Anyone who lives in a successful economy marked by liberal values takes a critical view of such a nationalisation.”
Syngenta has declined to comment on the status of negotiations.
Having spurned a $47 billion takeover approach from Monsanto last year, Syngenta is under pressure from shareholders to boost its value even as agricultural markets deteriorate.
A takeover of Syngenta by ChemChina would underpin an effort by the Chinese government to boost farming productivity as it seeks to cut reliance on food imports amid limited farm land, a growing population and higher meat consumption.
A group of Chinese investors including ChemChina agreed last week to buy KraussMaffei Group GmbH for 925 million euros ($1.01 billion), in the biggest-ever Chinese investment into Germany. (Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by Adrian Croft)
INEOS Styrolution, the global leader in styrenics, has today announced the official opening of a new world-scale ABS[1] facility located in Ningbo, China, together with its joint venture partner SINOPEC. The facility has an annual nameplate capacity of 600,000 tonnes.
The merger of Röhm’s Acrylic Products business unit and SABIC’s Functional Forms business has resulted in the formation of Polyvantis. This new company will offer extruded products in the forms film, sheet, pipe and rod for markets that include building and construction, transportation and aviation, electrical and electronics, automotive and home and garden.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) is considering plans to acquire upstream oil and gas company Wintershall DEA, an affiliate of BASF SE, according to a Bloomberg report citing people with knowledge of the matter. A deal to acquire Wintershall DEA could be worth more than €10 billion, the report said. BASF and Adnoc declined to comment on the report.