Reuters — DuPont CEO Edward Breen said on Tuesday that antitrust regulators were likely to show “very little” concern about the company’s pending merger with Dow Chemical and were not expected to seek significant asset sales.
Dupont and Dow plan to form a giant chemical and seed producer that would have a market value of about US$95 billion at current share prices.
The combined company will then split into three businesses, focused on agriculture, materials and specialty products.
Analysts have said regulators were likely to be especially concerned about the combination of the companies’ agricultural businesses, although company executives have said their businesses have little overlap.
“We feel there is very little overlap, despite the size of the companies,” Breen reiterated in a telephone interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
DuPont has begun the process of addressing the requirements under various competition laws, Breen said earlier on a call to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, which slightly beat market expectations.
— Reporting for Reuters by Swetha Gopinath in Bangalore; additional reporting by Amrutha Gayathri.
