FMC Corporation Announces Acquisition of Significant Portion of DuPont’s Crop Protection Business; Simultaneous Sale of Health and Nutrition to DuPont

FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) and DuPont (NYSE: DD)  announced the signing of a definitive agreement for FMC to acquire the portion of DuPont's Crop Protection business it must divest to comply with the European Commission ruling related to its merger with The Dow Chemical Company.  Additionally, DuPont will acquire FMC Health and Nutrition and receive $1.2 billion in cash.  FMC will acquire DuPont's global chewing pest insecticide portfolio, its global cereal broadleaf herbicides, and a substantial portion of DuPont's global crop protection R&D capabilities.  In 2017, FMC expects this acquired business will generate approximately $1.5 billion in revenue and $475 million of EBITDA.

After closing of the acquisition, FMC Agricultural Solutions will become the fifth largest crop protection chemical company in the world by revenue, with estimated annual revenue of approximately $3.8 billion. 

The Crop Protection Business Being Acquired

The acquired portion of DuPont's crop protection business includes an industry-leading selective insecticide portfolio consisting of Rynaxypyr^®, Cyazypyr^® and Indoxacarb.  The first two of these products have full patent protection over their respective active ingredients, and FMC expects these products will generate over $1 billion in 2017 revenue.  These selective insecticides are highly complementary to FMC's existing broad spectrum insecticide portfolio. 

The acquired portfolio also includes DuPont's global cereal broadleaf herbicides, consisting of nine active ingredients and multiple formulated products.  This herbicide portfolio comes with strong, recognized brands and DuPont's proprietary PrecisionPac^® technology.  These products bring significant diversification to FMC's crop exposure in herbicides, as well as increasing the balance of pre-emergent and post-emergent applications in FMC's portfolio.

The geographic spread of the revenue in this portfolio will result in a significant increase in FMC's presence in Asia and Europe.  Following the acquisition, FMC's crop protection revenue will be almost equally spread across all four major regions – North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

The underlying intellectual property related to the acquired products, including patents, registrations and data packages, will be transferred to FMC.  FMC will acquire a global manufacturing network to fully support these products, including four active ingredient manufacturing facilities and 10 regional formulation plants.

The acquisition will bring DuPont's world-class discovery and development organization, including its Delaware crop protection research headquarters, 14 regional development labs and related regulatory capabilities.  This organization includes a pipeline of 15 synthetic active ingredients currently in development, covering insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, and an extensive library of 1.8 million synthetic compounds.  The majority of DuPont's crop protection research workforce will transfer to FMC as part of this transaction.

FMC Health and Nutrition Divestiture

FMC Health and Nutrition will become part of DuPont's Nutrition & Health segment. 

"FMC Health and Nutrition is a highly profitable business with leading positions across the vast majority of its portfolio, deep applications knowledge and an extensive global network of laboratories and manufacturing facilities.  It is a very complementary fit with DuPont's current portfolio.  We are confident it will thrive under DuPont's leadership and will contribute to their successful Nutrition & Health business," said Brondeau.

Additional Information

The transaction is subject to the closing of the Dow and DuPont merger, as well as customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.  Closing is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2017.  FMC expects this transaction to be immediately accretive to adjusted earnings per share, and will give updated guidance for 2017 at its earnings call scheduled for May 2, 2017.  

Dyal Co. LLC and Citi acted as financial advisors and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal counsel to FMC.  Citi provided financing advice and committed debt facilities.

source : FMC website

Dukhi (Unhappy) India drops further on World Happiness Index

India is among the world’s least happy nations, and became even less happy in the last year. India ranked at 122 out of 155 countries in the World Happiness Report 2017, four notches below its previous rank of 118.  
 India was behind the majority of South Asian nations, apart from war-ravaged Afghanistan, that stood at 141. Among the eight South Asia  nations, Pakistan was at 80th position, Nepal stood at 99, Bhutan at 97, Bangladesh at 110 while Sri Lanka was at 120. However, Maldives did not figure in the World Happiness Report.

After ranking fourth for the last two years, Norway emerged at the top, displacing three-time topper Denmark for the first time. Denmark dropped to second place, followed by Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands.

The bottom five countries on the list where people are the unhappiest are Burundi (154), Tanzania (153), Syria (152), Rwanda (151) and the Central African Republic (155).

Studying happiness may seem frivolous, but serious academics have long been calling for more testing about people’s emotional well-being, The entire top ten were wealthier developed nations. Yet money is not the only ingredient in the recipe for happiness, the report said.

In fact, among the wealthier countries the differences in happiness levels had a lot to do with “differences in mental health, physical health and personal relationships: the biggest single source of misery is mental illness. Income differences matter more in poorer countries, but even their mental illness is a major source of misery,”  the report said.

The happiness rankings are based on six factors: GDP per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support (as measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble), trust (as measured by a perceived absence of corruption in government and business), perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity (as measured by recent donations). 

The United States meanwhile slipped to the number 14 spot due to less social support and greater corruption; those very factors play into why Nordic countries fare better on this scale of smiles. China, making  major economic strides in recent years, but its people are not happier than 25 years ago, it found.

INDIA Aims For World Record With 100+ Satellite Launches In One Go.

“We are making a century by launching over 100 satellites at one go,”  said  the, Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

 If successful, India will set a world record as the first country to launch the most satellites in one go and leave behind Russia, which launched 39 satellites in a single mission in June 2014.

The space agency had earlier planned a launch of 83 satellites in the last week of January, of which 80 were foreign ones. But with the addition of 20 more foreign satellites, the launch was delayed by a week and will now take place in first week of February.

As India looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market,   this step will be a significant milestone. Launching several satellites at one go reduces cost and India has been trying to position itself as a key player as an effective but low-cost operator.

In June,2016, India set a national record after it successfully launched a rocket carrying 20 satellites, including 13 from the US.

In May, it successfully launched its first mini space shuttle as it joined the global race to make reusable rockets.

It sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars in 2013 at a cost of just $73 million, compared with NASA's Maven Mars mission which had a $671 million price tag.

India  is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus, according to PTI.

India jumped up 16 positions on a global index of the world's most competitive economies

In a big jump, India has moved up 16 positions to rank 39th on a global index of the world's most competitive economies. The report  showed that India fared well in goods market efficiency, business sophistication and innovation

India’s competitiveness improved across the board, particularly in goods market efficiency (60), business sophistication (35) and innovation (29). WEF said recent reform efforts by the government have concentrated on improving public institutions (up 16 places), opening the economy to foreign investors and international trade (up 4), and increasing transparency in the financial system (up 15).

India still needs to cover a lot of ground, the WEF said, citing labour market deficiencies, large, public enterprises that reduce economic efficiency, especially in the utilities sector and the financial market. Lack of infrastructure remains a critical bottleneck, the report said.  

Top Quotes from India @UNGA 2016 in respose to Pakistan PM's speech

The land of Taxila, one of the greatest learning centres of ancient times, is now host to the  Ivy League of terrorism.
 

The effect of its (Pakistan's) toxic curriculum are felt across the globe.

Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation record is marked by deception and deceit.

Pakistan channelises billions of dollars, much of it diverted from international aid, to training, financing and supporting terrorist groups as militant proxies against it neighbours.

Pakistan is a terrorist state.

Pakistan extends support to extremist groups, it suppresses minorities and women and denies basic human rights including through draconian laws.

Terrorist entities and their leaders continue to roam the streets of Pakistan freely and operate with State’s support.

Pakistan is a democracy deficit country and practises terrorism on its own people.

It is ironical that a country which has established itself as the global epicentre of terrorism, is preaching human rights and talks about the ostensible support for self-determination.

What my country and our other neighbours are facing today is Pakistan’s long-standing policy of sponsoring terrorism.