By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Dow Chemical (N:DOW) and DuPont (N:DD) has offered to sell assets to ease EU competition concerns that their planned $130 billion (£104 billion) merger may lead to farmers facing higher prices and fewer new herbicides and pesticides in the future.
The companies submitted concessions to the European Commission on Feb. 7.
"The remedies include proposed divestment of a portion of DuPont's crop protection business and associated research and development, as well as Dow's acid copolymers and ionomers business," Dow said in an email.
The companies reiterated their goal of closing the deal in the first half of 2017. The European Commission confirmed that the companies had offered concessions. It is now expected to seek feedback from customers and rivals before deciding whether to accept them or demand more.
The deadline for the Commission's decision has now been extended to April 4 from March 14.
The Dow, DuPont deal is one of three in the agrochemicals industry as companies seek scale and cut costs. The others are planned combinations of ChemChina [CNNCC.UL] and Syngenta (S:SYNN) and of Bayer (DE:BAYGn) and Monsanto (N:MON).