Even though it wasn’t at the table for the talks between Bayer and Monsanto that led to a unification of the two companies, BASF still stands to gain significantly from the changes brought about in a new business climate.
As part of divestitures for Bayer to finish its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto, BASF gained a good deal of assets that added to its crop protection portfolio and launched a new seed business for the company.
“Needless to say, for us it’s a massive transformation,” Vincent Gros, BASF’s agricultural solutions president, said Tuesday in an interview with Agri-Pulse. “There is clearly a before and an after the acquisition of the Bayer businesses.”
Paul Rea, BASF’s senior vice president for agricultural solutions for the company’s North American operations, told attendees of the company’s Global Media Event that BASF expects to have 39 products coming to market by 2025, including expanded products in former Bayer product lines like Liberty and Poncho/Votivo. The venue for the event itself was a sign of changes for the company; it was held in Raleigh, N.C., on the Research Triangle Park campus formerly owned by Bayer.
Gros did cite some issues in integrating the 4,500 Bayer employees that joined BASF – which itself had about 8,000 ag employees prior to the acquisitions – after their various product lines and mission areas were acquired by the company. After adjusting to basic challenges like common IT platforms and new company procedures, he said many aspects of the business were doing well, specifically citing record returns in canola and vegetable seeds.
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