Brussels — Dow Chemical and DuPont won European Union approval for a $77bn merger, overcoming regulators’ concerns with hefty concessions, including the sale of large parts of DuPont’s global pesticide business. The takeover, announced a year ago, is the first to win approval out of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemical industry. The others are Bayer’s plan to buy Monsanto and China National Chemical’s agreement to buy Syngenta. The combined transactions would whittle down six industry players to three behemoths in the US, Germany and China. The EU said the deal could have allowed the companies halt work on new chemical products in areas where they compete head-to-head. There was "specific evidence" that Dow and DuPont would have cut back on the amount they spent on developing innovative products, the European Commission said in an e-mailed statement. Only Bayer, BASF and Syngenta match the two firms in discovering, developing and selling agrochemical. DuPo...
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