Politico’s Morning Agriculture Report says the European Union’s approval of the ChemChina merger with Syngenta means the ball is likely rolling for the six biggest biotech companies to be whittled down to three by the end of this year. A day before the E.U. approved the deal, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission also okayed the deal as long as certain stipulations were met that require ChemChina to sell off parts of its business that overlap with Syngenta. Now that the U.S. and E.U. have approved the deal, the two companies need the approval of China, India, and Mexico to complete their $43 million deal. Politico says the next deal likely to close will be the biggest. It’s the $130 billion merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont, which still requires the approval of the U.S., Brazil, and China. There’s still a $66 billion dollar deal between Bayer CropSciences and Monsanto to complete yet. The two companies are still looking for approval from up to 30 nation groups. However, they do expect to get an answer from the U.S. and the E.U. by the end of June, which they say would put the deal on track to be completed by the last quarter of this year.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.