China National Chemical has offered to buy Syngenta, the Swiss pesticide maker, for more than $43bn (£30bn) in what will be the biggest takeover by a Chinese company.

ChemChina, as the state-owned company is known, has courted Syngenta, the world’s largest agribusiness company, since November when it had a proposed $42bn offer rebuffed.

The cash takeover, which Syngenta’s board will recommend to shareholders, will heighten the shakeup in the agrochemicals industry after Dow Chemical and DuPont agreed to combine to create a company valued at more than $100bn.

The deal, if completed, will make ChemChina, led by its ambitious chairman Ren Jianxin, the world’s biggest producer of pesticides and agrochemicals. It will also support the ambitions of China’s president, Xi Jinping, to increase output and keep China self-sufficient in food production as its growing middle class eats more meat and farmland is turned into housing and golf courses.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest China M&A activity in Europe. Blue bars represent deal value in dollars, and orange buttons the number of deals. Composite: Thomsom Reuters

ChemChina plans to keep Syngenta’s management team, including John Ramsay, the chief executive. Ren will chair a board of 10 including four of Syngenta’s existing directors.

Syngenta said the deal would give it more scope to expand further in pesticides and to develop its seeds business while getting greater access to emerging markets, in particular China.

Michel Demaré, Syngenta’s chairman, said the takeover did not mean Syngenta would now be controlled by the Chinese government and that ChemChina, which has been on an acquisition spree, understood the importance of giving businesses autonomy.

“This is absolutely not a China nationalisation,” Demaré told CNBC. “ChemChina has a fantastic track record of having not only bought companies outside of China but also having kept investing in them and developing them and keeping the culture and values in place and I’m absolutely convinced that the same will happen here.”

Syngenta’s decision to accept ChemChina’s offer is a setback for Monsanto, the genetically modified seed producer, which has also tried to buy the Basel-based company.



Monsanto made an offer valued at almost $47bn for Syngenta last year but that bid was rejected by the Swiss company’s previous management. Monsanto’s offer was in cash and its own shares, whose value has since declined. Demaré and Ramsay have faced pressure from shareholders to agree a deal after rebuffing Monsanto.

In addition to the $465 a share cash offer from ChemChina, Syngenta shareholders will receive a SFr5 special dividend and an ordinary dividend of SFr11, taking the total value to SFr480 a share, Syngenta said.

Ren said: “The discussions between our two companies have been friendly, constructive and cooperative. We look forward to Michel Demaré remaining on the board as vice-chairman and lead independent director, and to working with John Ramsay and the management and employees of Syngenta to deliver safe and reliable solutions for the continued growth in global food demand.”