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Chinese firm takes over Swiss pesticide giant Syngenta

ChemChina has completed its $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta, the companies said, in the biggest overseas acquisition so far by a Chinese firm.

Published: 28 June 2017 11:19 CEST
Updated: 28 June 2017 15:12 CEST

Chinese firm takes over Swiss pesticide giant Syngenta

Photo: Sebastien Bozon/AFP

The deal combines Syngenta, a global leader in seeds and crop protection, with ChemChina which controls Adama, the largest supplier of generic crop protection products in Europe.

It is part of a broader wave of consolidation in the agro-chemicals sector that has worried environmental activists and farmers. ChemChina – also known as China National Chemical Corp – made its offer for Syngenta in February 2016, but the takeover had to await the green light from regulators.

US and European Union authorities approved the deal in April despite growing resistance on both sides of the Atlantic to blockbuster takeovers by Chinese companies.

READ ALSO: Leaders ink new Chinese-Swiss deals

China itself has sought to rein in the foreign buying spree by its firms over concerns about capital flight and bad loans, reversing course after previously encouraging such ventures abroad.

ChemChina pledged to sell part of Adama's pesticide business and take other steps, to gain regulatory approval.

“All our stakeholders are benefiting from this change of ownership. Jobs have been safeguarded and farmers will continue to have a choice and enjoy the benefits of our investments in technology,” Syngenta vice chairman Michel Demare said in a statement on Tuesday.

Syngenta will remain a standalone company and the existing management team will continue to run it.

ChemChina chairman Ren Jianxin, who has been elected to head Syngenta's board of directors, said the Chinese company would support Syngenta's “growth, product offering and services”.

READ ALSO: Swiss man wins contest for dream job in China

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Farmers dump sheep killed by wolves in front of Swiss government building

Around a dozen breeders came from the Saint-Barthelemy area in the western Swiss canton of Vaud to lay out the carcasses of 12 sheep in front of the regional government headquarters in Lausanne, the Chateau Saint-Maire.

“These sheep were killed last night,” Eric Herb, a member of a Swiss association demanding the regulation of big predators, was quoted as saying by the Keystone-ATS news agency.

“It is really time to act.”

“We are sick of this. We want the wolf killed,” agreed Patrick Perroud, a farmer and butcher from the nearby municipality of Oulens.

“Cohabitation is not possible. Our territory is too small,” he told Keystone-ATS.

The protesters told the news agency that wolves had killed 17 sheep in the same area late last month, two earlier this week and 13 overnight to Saturday.

“The breeders have played nice until now, but this time it was too much,” Herb said.

The protesters were planning to increase the pressure on the Vaud government environment minister, Vassilis Venizelos of the Green Party, he said.

One of the protesters’ banners read: “Vassilis step down”, Keystone-ATS reported.

The breeders had briefly negotiated with regional police before being allowed to lay down the animal carcasses on tarpaulin in front of the Chateau.

Participants in the protest, which was supported by the regional chapter of the far-right Swiss People’s Party — Switzerland’s largest party — lamented that they were losing sleep.

“We have to check on our animals every night,” one was quoted as saying.

After being wiped out more than a century ago, wolves have in recent decades begun returning to Switzerland and to several other European countries.

Since the first pack was spotted in the wealthy Alpine nation in 2012, the number of packs swelled to 32 last year, with around 300 individual wolves counted.

Nature conservation groups have hailed the return as a sign of a healthier and more diverse ecosystem.

But breeders and herders complain of attacks on livestock and have been ramping up demands to cull more wolves.

Swiss authorities last year relaxed the rules for hunting the protected species, and decided to allow large preventative culls in the most affected cantons but swift legal actions put those plans partially on ice.

The debate in several parts of Europe about wolves rose up the political agenda in September.

In an open letter to the European Commission, eight leading conservation groups said there were ways to make coexistence easier between humans and large wild animals like wolves.

“Damage to livestock is often linked to the lack of adequate supervision and/or physical protection,” they said. They pointed to strategies such as “the training of dogs to protect herds, education of herders, tools and technical solutions to deter wolves”.

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