Crop protection and biotech seed producer Corteva Agriscience, one of three businesses spun off from the mega US$130bn DowDuPont merger in 2017, began trading as a separate stock on 3 June.
Corteva produces insecticides and herbicides for various oilseeds and other crops. Under the Pioneer and Mycogen Seeds brands, Corteva also supplies GM corn, soyabean, corn, sunflower, canola and alfalfa seeds to farmers worldwide.
Oilseed & Grain News wrote that last year, the business generated US$14bn in sales across 140 countries, broken down to US$7.8bn in sales for corn, soyabean and other crops seeds, and US$6.4bn in crop protection sales.
DowDuPont was formed in 2017 by the US$130bn merger of US chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont and is now in the final stages of splitting into three separate business units.
Meanwhile, the “new” DuPont based announced another reorganisation just five days before its historic breakup, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on 29 May.
The company combined two of its four remaining divisions as it sought buyers for a series of businesses.
DuPont was merging its Industrial Biosciences unit into its Nutrition & Health business and basing the resulting Nutrition & Biosciences Unit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Nutrition & Health business includes the former Danisco, a Danish enzyme maker and supplier of yogurt cultures, among other products.
A reconstituted Dow Chemical – which makes chemicals used in cosmetics, paints and packaging – split from the group on 1 April, part of a complex deal designed to transfer assets so they could attract more interest from investors and higher share prices, without incurring US income taxes.
However, so far, the successor companies were worth less than the US$150bn that the companies were worth when the deal was announced, the Philadelphia Inquirer said.
“As with other US-based multinational manufacturing companies, DuPont sales have fallen below expectations amid the drop in foreign trade following US President Trump’s tariffs against China and amid Chinese and European retaliatory tariffs,” the newspaper wrote.
