SoylentNews

butthurt submitted a story which became:

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:

• St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Reuters
• Motley Fool
• New York Times (older story)
• Bloomberg (older story)
• USA Today (older story)
• Fierce Pharma (older story)
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch (older story)
• MarketWatch (older story)

related story:
Cartoonist Fired for Criticizing Big Agriculture

Original Submission