MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Commission has conditionally approved the sale by DuPont of part of its crop protection business to FMC Corp. and DuPont's acquisition of FMC's health and nutrition business, as per ABSNews.
The deals cleared Thursday help DuPont meet Commission requirements for DuPont's pending USD62 billion merger with Dow Chemical.
The merger was announced in December 2015 and was initially expected to close in the first half of 2016. But it was delayed several times while U.S. and foreign regulators reviewed it.
The European Commission cleared the merger in March, subject to conditions including DuPont selling major parts of its global pesticide business.
As MRC reported earlier, in late June 2017, DuPont and the Dow Chemical Company reached a proposed agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division that will enable the firms to advance the proposed merger of equals. The companies received the approval on condition that DuPont will divest certain parts of its crop protection portfolio. Dow will therefore sell its global Ethylene Acrylic Acid copolymers and ionomers business.
Dow and DuPont had already secured clearance in several jurisdictions, including approvals in the US, Europe, Brazil and China. Currently, both the companies are working constructively with regulators to receive clearance from the remaining jurisdictions. The companies anticipate the merger will be completed in August this year with the intended spin-offs to occur within 18 months of closing.
The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational chemical corporation. Dow is a large producer of plastics, including polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber.
DuPont is an American chemical company that was founded in July, 1802. The company manufactures a wide range of chemical products, leading extensive innovative research in this field. The company is the inventor of many unique plastics and other materials, including neoprene, nylon, Teflon, Kevlar, Mylar, Tyvek, etc. DuPont was the developer and main producer of Freon used in the production of refrigeration equipment.
MRC