Monsanto Rebuffs Bayer's Sweetened Merger Offer

By Anne Steele 

Monsanto Co. on Tuesday rejected Bayer AG's revised $65 billion takeover proposal as "financially inadequate" and "insufficient to ensure deal certainty."

The U.S. seed giant, however, said it remains open to discussing a tie-up with the German life-sciences company "and other parties."

Last week, Bayer boosted its offer for Monsanto in a bid to overcome the company's resistance to the merger and join a parade of consolidation in the agriculture industry.

Bayer made the new $125-a-share offer verbally on July 1 and more formally eight days later, it said in a statement Thursday confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal. The new bid represents a $3-a-share bump from an earlier proposal Monsanto rejected as too low.

Bayer is pursuing what would be the latest in a succession of multibillion-dollar merger agreements in the $100 billion global market for agricultural seeds and pesticides, which has struggled with a slide in crop prices. Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. struck a merger deal in December, and Switzerland's Syngenta AG-which Monsanto unsuccessfully pursued last year-agreed in February to a $43 billion takeover by China National Chemical Corp.

A deal would also reshape Bayer itself, making agriculture roughly half its overall sales, which has rattled some investors who view the company more as a health-care player than a producer of crop seeds.

Shares of Monsanto fell 1.5% in premarket trading to $104.80.

Write to Anne Steele at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 19, 2016 08:33 ET (12:33 GMT)

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