Frankfurt — Chemicals and pharmaceuticals company Bayer will discard the name Monsanto when it takes over the controversial US seed and pesticides producer, it says. But Bayer executives insisted Monsanto practices rejected by environmentalists, including genetic modification of seeds and deployment of "crop protection" technologies like pesticides, were vital to help feed a growing world population. "The company name is and will remain Bayer. Monsanto will no longer be a company name," CEO Werner Baumann told journalists.
Bayer’s $63bn buyout of Monsanto is set to close on Thursday, giving birth to a global company with 115,000 employees and revenues of €45bn. Bosses planned to name the merged agrichemical division Bayer Crop Science, business newspaper Handelsblatt said, citing "industry sources". The Monsanto brand "was an issue for some time for Monsanto management", noted Liam Condon, president of Bayer’s crop science division, adding that the US firm’s employees were "no...
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