BASF SE is working with advisers and financing banks to examine the merits of making a counter bid for DuPont Co, the US$55 billion chemical company that agreed to a merger with Dow Chemical Co in December last year, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The Ludwigshafen, Germany-based chemical producer has not made a decision yet about proceeding with an offer, the people said.
BASF, which has been working with advisers since last year to explore a bid for DuPont, held talks with the US company before it agreed to merge with Dow. Those talks did not progress, the people said.
BASF is the world’s third-largest producer of weed-killers, insecticides and other pesticides, after Syngenta AG and Bayer AG, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Buying DuPont would add to its agricultural chemical portfolio and give it the second-largest producer of crop seeds, such as corn genetically modified to withstand insects and herbicides. Monsanto Co is the largest seed company.
BASF chief executive officer Kurt Bock said last month that he considered a deal in the field of agricultural chemicals amid China’s takeover of Syngenta and the merger of Dow and DuPont, before deciding to stay put.
The largest seed and pesticide makers have been discussing deals since Monsanto offered to buy Switzerland’s Syngenta nearly a year ago. Syngenta rebuffed Monsanto and last month agreed to be acquired by China National Chemical Co (中國化工).
Meanwhile, Dow and DuPont’s merger of equals is the largest deal ever in the chemical industry, creating a company with combined market values of US$111 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last