Monsanto Rebuffs Bayer's Sweetened Merger Offer
19 Juli 2016 - 2:48PM
Dow Jones News
By Anne Steele
Monsanto Co. on Tuesday rejected Bayer AG's revised $65 billion
takeover proposal as "financially inadequate" and "insufficient to
ensure deal certainty."
The U.S. seed giant, however, said it remains open to discussing
a tie-up with the German life-sciences company "and other
parties."
Last week, Bayer boosted its offer for Monsanto in a bid to
overcome the company's resistance to the merger and join a parade
of consolidation in the agriculture industry.
Bayer made the new $125-a-share offer verbally on July 1 and
more formally eight days later, it said in a statement Thursday
confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal. The new
bid represents a $3-a-share bump from an earlier proposal Monsanto
rejected as too low.
Bayer is pursuing what would be the latest in a succession of
multibillion-dollar merger agreements in the $100 billion global
market for agricultural seeds and pesticides, which has struggled
with a slide in crop prices. Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. struck
a merger deal in December, and Switzerland's Syngenta AG-which
Monsanto unsuccessfully pursued last year-agreed in February to a
$43 billion takeover by China National Chemical Corp.
A deal would also reshape Bayer itself, making agriculture
roughly half its overall sales, which has rattled some investors
who view the company more as a health-care player than a producer
of crop seeds.
Shares of Monsanto fell 1.5% in premarket trading to
$104.80.
Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 19, 2016 08:33 ET (12:33 GMT)
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