With its shares trading at three-year-lows since it abandoned a $46 billion bid to buy Syngenta AG last month, Monsanto Co plans to offer its shareholders a new corporate vision: a future in big data.
Monsanto (MON.N) executives are seeking to reposition the company as a business built on data science and services, as well as its traditional chemicals, seeds and genetic traits operations, chief technology officer Robert T. Fraley told Reuters in an interview.
“We transformed from an industrial chemical company to a biotech company, then to a seeds company,” Fraley said. “Now, we’re transforming again.” Top executives are sketching out plans now, and briefing major shareholders ahead of a wider presentation to investors in November at the company’s St. Louis headquarters. Fraley and others have met with at least 195 technology start-ups in recent months and identified five as potential acquisition targets, pending Monsanto’s testing of products they make, company sources said.