Advocates see many benefits of Bayer-Monsanto merger
The companies provided an update of Bayer’s bid to take over Monsanto and become one of the world’s biggest agriculture conglomerates at the Commodity Classic in San Antonio.
Adrian Percy, the global head of research and development for the Crop Science Division at Bayer, said submissions already have been made to regulatory authorities in about 20 of the 30 countries that would have to approve the merger.
“We’ve always emphasized this is a marathon, not a sprint. Obviously, with other consolidation deals going through in the industry, this is a very complex time,” he said.
“Everything is going on track as far as we’re concerned, and we still anticipate a closing by the end of the year.”
Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, said the deal could do for agriculture what Amazon has done for shopping — “lots of choice, lots of options, complete transparency, tracking, efficiency.”
“On Amazon, they start making recommendations on what you can do better and how you can shop smarter. That same kind of toolkit’s now available for farmers,” he said.
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