Bayer AG divests $9B agriculture business to BASF

In separate closings on August 1 and August 16, 2018, Bayer AG, a global enterprise with core competencies in the Life Science fields of health care and agriculture, completed one of the largest antitrust enforcement divestitures in history by selling their agricultural businesses and assets for US$9 billion to German chemical company BASF SE. 

The assets included Bayer’s canola, soybean and vegetable seed businesses, as well as its Liberty herbicide business, all of which competed with Monsanto products. 

German in-house lawyers Thomas Reuter (corporate) and Paul Fort (merger control) led the global effort for Bayer, assisted in the US by John Fred (antitrust) and in Canada by Curtis Bunz (corporate). German in-house lawyer Sascha Reichardt led the global effort for BASF, assisted by Melanie Stevens, Eva Rayle and Danielle Reid in the US, and in Canada by Marie-Eve Rehayem, Marian Van Hoek and Sean Morrison. 

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP acted as global lead counsel to Bayer on the deal, with a corporate team led by Matthew Hurd in New York and supported by Tyler Hill, Evan Simpson and Oscar Hayward in London, and the global merger control effort was co-led by Juan Rodriguez and Axel Beckmerhagen in London, and by Steve Holley, Dustin Guzior and Brad Smith in New York, and by Eric Krautheimer in Los Angeles. 

Bayer was represented by Dentons Canada LLP in respect of corporate matters in Canada, as well as local corporate matters around the world, by Richard Scott, Mark Mahoney, Kelli Patel, Matthew Dunnet and Alex Eckler, and in respect of competition and foreign investment review by Susan Hutton, Paul Collins, Jeffrey Brown, Ashley Piotrowski and Michael Rosenstock of Stikeman Elliott LLP

BASF was represented globally by Peter Lyons, Aly El Hamamsy, Paul Humphreys, Daniel Clarke, Sean Hinton (M&A), Frank Montag, Rafique Bachour, Thomas McGrath, Daniel Baker (antitrust), Menachem Kaplan (IP), Claude Stansbury (tax) of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP; and in Canada as to merger control by Anthony Baldanza, Huy Do and Tony Di Domenico of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.