Syngenta, the Swiss agribusiness group that is being acquired by ChemChina in the biggest foreign takeover by a Chinese company, will help Beijing modernise China’s farm sector while simultaneously remaining firmly a “western company”, its chairman has said.
Michel Demaré told the Financial Times that, under its new owners, Syngenta would become “a partner of the Chinese government to basically drive the modernisation of Chinese agriculture, so we get the whole growth story”.
Syngenta’s shareholders last week approved the $43bn takeover, which was launched more than a year ago and is part of a range of large-scale mergers in the international business of supplying farmers with seeds and crop protection products.