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posted by martyb on Thursday May 19 2016, @09:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the seeds-of-a-takeover dept.

Monsanto announced that it has received an unsolicited purchase offer from Bayer AG. The offer is under consideration by Monsanto's board of directors. The companies are both major sellers of pesticides and of seeds for crops. Monsanto's market capitalisation on 18 May was $42.43 billion.

According to Dow Jones Business News via NASDAQ:

Folding Monsanto's world-leading seed franchise and its trademark Roundup herbicide business into Bayer would create a company with a combined $68 billion in annual sales, marketing products ranging from Aspirin pain-relief pills to crop genetics that enable plants to withstand bugs and weedkillers. The combination would sell about 28% of the world's pesticides and about 36% of U.S. corn seeds and 28% of soybean seeds, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.

Coverage:

related story:
Cartoonist Fired for Criticizing Big Agriculture


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:37PM

    by Gravis (4596) on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:37PM (#348533)

    I don't see how Monsanto could get any more evil, so maybe new management would be an improvement. Hopefully, they will raise the price of herbicides and GMO seeds so that they will be used less. (I'm not against GMOs, just profit driven GMOs)

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @11:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @11:11PM (#348548)

    Is evil synergistic? If we add two evil companies together do we get more than 2x the amount of evil?

    From the Wiki page on Bayer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer [wikipedia.org] -
    > In 1925 Bayer became part of IG Farben, the world's largest chemical company. Following the Nazi takeover of Germany, IG Farben was embroiled in the Nazi regime's policies as a large government contractor. After World War II, Bayer was reestablished as an independent company, and quickly regained its position as one of the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical corporations. Bayer has been involved in controversies regarding some of its drug products; its statin drug Baycol (cerivastatin) was discontinued in 2001 after 52 people died from renal failure, and Trasylol (aprotinin), used to control bleeding during major surgery, was withdrawn from the markets worldwide when reports of increased mortality emerged; it was later re-introduced in Europe but not in the US.

    And an amusing bit of history -
    > Heroin (diacetylmorphine), now illegal as an addictive drug, was trademarked and marketed by Bayer as a cough suppressant and non-addictive substitute for morphine from 1898 to 1910.[13] Bayer scientists were not the first to make heroin, but their scientists discovered ways to make it, and Bayer led commercialization of heroin.[14] Heroin was a Bayer trademark until after World War I.[15]

    The wikipedia page even has a picture of the bottle with Heroin label in a little 'swish' logo.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2016, @05:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2016, @05:23AM (#348632)

      Now that's a cute couple! Next product Round Zyklon Up B? Don't you just love the poison industry?