Syngenta shareholder group opposes merger with ChemChina

A shareholder group of the Swiss agribusiness Syngenta are opposing the company’s planned sale to ChemChina and have called for a change in the company’s leadership.

According to Reuters, the managing director Folke Rauscher of the shareholders who represent about 10% of Syngenta’s capital is calling for a “comprehensive renewal” of the group’s board of directors at its next annual meeting.

“The board of directors is in a cul de sac from which it cannot exit on its own,” Rauscher wrote in a letter to the Basler Zeitung newspaper in criticism of the current Syngenta chairman Michel Demare.

In early January Demare said Syngenta was in talks about a possible merger, with possible partners including China’s state-owned ChemChina, the US agribusiness juggernaut Monsanto, and others.

"One can justifiably ask whether the board has really thought through the consequences of nationalising Syngenta through a sale to a state-owned enterprise of a communist country," Rauscher wrote.

Syngenta has declined to comment on the merger negotiations.

Last year the agricompany received a $47 billion (€43.2bn) takeover offer from Monsanto, which has spurred Syngenta’s shareholders to pressure the company to boost its value even when faced with the agri market’s deterioration.

According to Reuters, ChemChina is seeking to take over Syngenta in an effort by the Chinese government to boost farming productivity as it seeks to cut reliance on food imports amid limited farm land, a growing population, and higher meat consumption.

A group of Chinese investors, including ChemChina, agreed last week to buy KraussMaffei Group for €925 million in the biggest-ever Chinese investment into Germany.