It seems impossible that AgriChemical and Life Science companies could get any bigger than the few giants of the industry today, but two of the oldest and largest will merge as the day ends. Dow Chemical was founded in 1897 and DuPont in 1802. Each bought many companies in their history to arrive at a combined merger value of $130 billion. In the 1990s, DuPont purchased the largest independent seed company, Pioneer Hi-bred International, and expanded its business into biotechnology.
The leadership of both companies has gone through a merger shakeout in the past two years. Andrew N. Liveris, current CEO and President, will become executive chairman of the newly formed DowDuPont Board of Directors. Edward D. Breen, chairman and CEO of DuPont, will become CEO of DowDuPont. Both Liveris and Breen are to report to the board of directors. DowDuPont’s board will have 16 directors, consisting of eight Dow directors and eight DuPont directors.
Within 18 months of closing the Dow-DuPont deal, the company is to separate into three independent, publicly traded companies through tax-free spin-offs. Agricultural interests are expected to be one of the new companies and compete with Syngenta, which was recently purchased by ChemChina, and the result of the pending merger of Monsanto and Bayer.
