BUSINESS The news at a glance
M&A: Bayer-Monsanto merger approved
The Justice Department will approve Bayer’s $62.5 billion “megadeal” to acquire the agricultural giant Monsanto, said Brent Kendall and Jacob Bunge in The Wall Street Journal. Antitrust regulators signed off on the deal—the Trump administration’s second “major merger decision” after it challenged AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner last year—when the companies agreed to sell off a cluster of assets. Germany’s Bayer, a pharmaceutical and chemical conglomerate, is a top player in pesticides, while St. Louis–based Monsanto is a market leader in seeds and crop genes. The deal will make Bayer “the world’s largest supplier of pesticides and seeds for farmers.” “Farmers are worried about what the consolidation might mean for prices and their future business,” said Dana Varinsky in BusinessInsider.com. Both Bayer and Monsanto insist that their union will promote research and innovation and curtail price rises, but “farmers aren’t so sure.” The deal, which has already received approval from the European Union, is so massive that it will require regulatory approval in 30 different countries. It comes amid “the increasing consolidation of the agriculture supply industry” and marks the industry’s third recent mega-merger. With trade tariffs now also on the horizon, U.S. farmers don’t “expect things to get easier anytime soon.”