Global merger and acquisition (M&A) deal values fell by 52% during the first half of 2020, compared with the $1.9 trillion in the same period last year, while the number of deals fell by 16%.
Those deals being agreed, however, continue to force changes in innovation strategies. Austria-based AMS’s agreed offer for Germany-based industrial group Osram could see the latter’s Fluxunit corporate venturing unit manage external innovation for the wider group under Ulrich Eisele.
But aggregations elsewhere seem to be forcing changes. Colin Steen earlier in the week announced his move from agribusiness Syngenta’s corporate venturing unit, Syngenta Ventures, to become CEO of US-headquartered seed producer Legacy Seed Companies.
Shiri Ailon will be heading up the group as they determine the next leader of the Ventures team, Steen said.
China government-owned ChemChina bought Syngenta for $43bn in a 2017 deal that represented the largest ever overseas acquisition by a Chinese company.
Earlier this year, ChemChina and domestic peer SinoChem consolidated their agricultural chemical businesses into a new holding company within ChemChina called Syngenta Group, and it is expected to relist the business in China by mid-2022, according to news provider Caixin.
Caixin calculates that Syngenta Group has total assets of about RMB200bn ($23bn), including roughly 75% of Adama, the Israel-based crop protection product maker acquired by ChemChina, as well as 52.7% of fertiliser supplier Sinofert and 39.9% of Jiangsu Yangnong Chemical.
But one of the most interesting forms of M&A taking hold this year are the use of listed special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) to allow private companies to go public through effectively a reverse merger. More than half of the initial public offerings (IPO) to list on the New York Stock Exchange in H1 were SPACs. The exchange raised 82% of US SPAC IPO proceeds totalling $8.8bn.
