AGROCHEMICALS PREFERENCE
BASF has no interest in Akzo Nobel unit
London/New York — BASF will not aggressively pursue a bid for Akzo Nobel’s chemical division and will instead prioritise deals in agrochemicals, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The German company was primarily interested in the crop-care assets that Bayer was divesting as part of its deal for Monsanto, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Having remained on the sidelines of the large-scale mergers and acquisitions that have swept across the agrochemical industry, BASF CEO Kurt Bock is in pole position to pounce on the billions of dollars of crop-care assets that Bayer and others are being forced to sell to meet antitrust regulator demands. Whereas normally it took just a buyer and seller to agree on a deal, the presence of antitrust regulators in talks added another layer of complexity, Bock said on Thursday. Internally, BASF managers lobbied senior executives to pursue Akzo Nobel’s chemicals division, which could carry ...
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