Syngenta Reportedly Pondering Takeover Of Dow AgroSciences

Syngenta AG, the world’s biggest maker of farm chemicals, would consider buying Dow Chemical Co.’s agricultural-sciences unit if it’s put up for sale, Bloomberg News Service reported this week.

“We have no formal confirmation that the business is for sale,” Medard Schoenmaeckers, a spokesman for Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta told Bloomberg Monday by phone. “Of course, it would be an opportunity that we would be interested in looking at.”

Dow, the largest U.S. chemical maker, may sell Dow AgroSciences, which makes pesticides and develops genetically modified seeds, as it looks to fund its $15.4 billion buyout of Rohm & Haas Co., according to analysts. Dow Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris said last month that completing the Rohm & Haas acquisition, which was due by Jan. 27, would threaten the survival of the combined company.

Dow AgroSciences, which had $4.5 billion in sales last year, is worth $5 billion to $7 billion because the business has steady revenue growth and earnings, HSBC analyst Hassan Ahmed said Feb. 4. As well as Syngenta, DuPont Co. and Monsanto Co. have similar businesses and are prospective buyers, he said.

Syngenta has fallen 15% in the past year and has a market value of 24.3 billion Swiss francs ($20.8 billion).

Schoenmaeckers wouldn’t say whether Syngenta is holding talks with Dow. “We can only look at opportunities when they arise,” he said.

Syngenta was formed in 2000 from the merger of the farm chemical units of Swiss drug maker Novartis AG and the U.K.’s AstraZeneca Plc. It’s also the world’s third-biggest seed maker.

Syngenta is stepping up its challenge to St. Louis-based Monsanto, the world’s biggest maker of seeds, by expanding its offering of genetically modified seeds.