ChemChina (Beijing) has once again extended its tender offer for Syngenta while the companies wait for the final rulings of several antitrust authorities. ChemChina’s offer has been extended until 28 April, the company announced Thursday. The offer had been due to expire on 2 March.
“As previously stated, extensions to the tender offers are expected to occur until all conditions to the offers are satisfied, including obtaining all applicable regulatory approvals. All of the other terms and conditions of the tender offer remain unchanged,” ChemChina says.
Syngenta, at its annual results briefing earlier this month, said that it expects the deal to close in the second quarter of this year. Erik Fyrwald, Syngenta CEO, said on 8 February that the takeover by ChemChina is progressing, with EU approval expected before 12 April 2017. ChemChina announced one year ago that it had agreed to acquire Syngenta for $43 billion and originally expected to close the deal by the end of 2016. However, protracted antitrust approvals have delayed closure.
Syngenta said that on 3 January 2017 it and ChemChina requested a further extension of the EU antitrust review period until 12 April 2017 to allow sufficient time for the process to complete. On 13 January, the companies submitted a formal filing to the FTC in the United States, which included remedy proposals.
Syngenta at the time of the briefing had approvals in 13 countries and was still waiting for approvals from Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, and the United States. Fyrwald said that good progress was being made in the United States and European Union. He said that the deal had been expected to close before the end of last year. “[However], that changed in September when the Monsanto-Bayer deal was announced. At that point, the regulators were looking at three major [agchem] deals and were concerned about the R&D in a very critically important market, agricultural technology.” More data was requested by the regulators, which has delayed closure.
Syngenta has made remedy proposals and said it was confident the European Union would make a decision before 12 April. The company also expects a decision from the United States by that time.
By Natasha Alperowicz
Source: Chemical Week
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