SYT Syngenta Ag (delisted)

By Natalia Drozdiak 

BRUSSELS--China National Chemical Corp. on Wednesday won EU approval for its roughly $43 billion takeover of Swiss seed and pesticide maker Syngenta AG on condition ChemChina divest large parts of its European businesses for pesticides and products that regulate crop growth.

The European Commission's announcement came a day after the U.S. cleared the deal--the largest ever overseas acquisition by a Chinese company--on condition ChemChina sell three crop chemical businesses to a rival.

The green-light from the European Union and U.S. will further consolidate the agrochemical market amid a wave of multibillion-dollar deals in the industry. The EU last week cleared Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co.'s merger, leaving Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. the last of the three major deals in the sector still looking to clinch approval from the EU and other regulators.

In the ChemChina-Syngenta deal, the EU said the companies offered to divest a significant part of ChemChina's pesticides business, manufactured by Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd., an Israeli-based ChemChina subsidiary that focuses on generic chemicals. The companies will also sell a significant part of Adama's plant growth regulator business for cereals in a number of EU countries, the commission said.

In addition, the companies agreed to sell 29 of Adama's generic pesticides under development and grant third parties access to studies and field trial results for the products. From Syngenta, the companies will sell off some of the firm's fungicides and herbicides, the EU said.

To win U.S. approval, ChemChina has already pledged to sell several of Adama's pesticide assets to American Vanguard Corp., the Federal Trade Commission said.

In a statement, ChemChina confirmed the EU had approved the deal, but did not provide detail on divestments. The company said it expected to complete the transaction in the second quarter.

"This marks an important step toward the success of the transaction," ChemChina said in a statement.

--Brian Spegele contributed to this article.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 05, 2017 06:48 ET (10:48 GMT)

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