Dow Chemical and DuPont Plan Huge Merger Followed By a Split (nytimes.com) 56
An anonymous reader writes: Two of the largest and oldest chemical companies, Dow and DuPont, have planned a merger. Dow's 53,000 employees will join forces with DuPont's 63,000 employees, which will challenge Germany's BASF for the biggest chemical company in the world. Not for long, though — once the merger is complete, they will split up into three. One will focus on agriculture, one on materials science, and one on specialty products. According to the press release, it will indeed be a merger of equals, with both companies comprising 50% of the new DowDuPont behemoth. "Despite the eventual breakup, the deal would undergo rigorous antitrust scrutiny for all three companies, particularly the agricultural chemicals company. Still, the companies did not expect that the deal would require much in the way of other divestitures to satisfy regulators' concerns."
Woot! (Score:1)
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Well. at least I don't think they have tried to produce reel to reel tape like BASF has done. Damn I used to hate those BASF tapes that left their coating and what not on my recording heads. Back then I would swear by 3M Scotch Classic.
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Well. at least I don't think they have tried to produce reel to reel tape like BASF has done. Damn I used to hate those BASF tapes that left their coating and what not on my recording heads. Back then I would swear by 3M Scotch Classic.
i used to buy BASF cassettes in the belief that they knew what they were doing, and in the fullness of time they all refused to move. Tried transferring the tape packs into new housings, no go, so I figure the lube in the tape went away.
was a network engineer for Dow in early 2000's (Score:2)
I worked as a network engineer/contractor near 2001 for Dow when they were merging with Cargill - trying to mix an OSPF and ISIS network and they ran DecNet - good times
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DecNet - shudder, twitch. A trigger warning would have been nice. Now I need to go to my safe space.
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The Cause For all Modern Day Cancers
Not true! Liberal Luddite Lies! Many modern day cancers are due to power companies, either dirty old coal, or leaky nukes!
And the obligatory layoffs... (Score:2, Insightful)
10% of the total staff will face the axe as well..
Of course execs and shareholders will make out like bandits. Or would that be "robber barons"?
Pity (Score:2)
Teddy would be turning over in his grave...
and they will say we need more HB1's as we can't (Score:2)
and they will say we need more HB1's as we can't find some in the usa to work our help desk for $12 HR.
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It's H1B, not HB1, ya drunk.
Maybe it's the pencils. We don't see many HB1s. Mostly HB2s.
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10% of the total staff will face the axe as well..
That's why they call it synergy.
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So then invest in the stock. Quit whining and complaining about the success of others, and start trying to get rich yourself.
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News that is known is already built into the price. Unless you bought Dow or DuPont a couple months ago and the market thought the merger was worthwhile (not usually for the reasons put out in the press release), you're not going to be making bank. Right now, no pop in the stock price means that no one's making money from the merger except the investment bankers that will be involved in the stock conversions.
New Company Names (Score:4, Funny)
Once they spit the new companies will be named Dow Du and Pont.
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Du...
Du Pont...
Du Pont mich.
Sorry, that thought was marching in a circle through my brain until I posted this and let it out. Now, it's in your brain!
Clearly anti-competive but no regulator concern? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the two are combined, they plan to split into three separate companies, consisting of agricultural chemicals, specialty products and materials, like plastics.
Despite the eventual breakup, the deal would undergo rigorous antitrust scrutiny for all three companies, particularly the agricultural chemicals company. Still, the companies did not expect that the deal would require much in the way of other divestitures to satisfy regulators’ concerns.
So, they plan to combine two competing companies into one and then divide into three non-competing companies and they expect this to satisfy regulators? Are the regulators that corrupt?
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Are the regulators that corrupt?
Kind of a silly question, no?
At least in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all lobying groups work by giving bribes. (Score:3)
Ultimately, what is a lobbying group but institutional level major bribes being paid to get something in return?
A lobbying group is an organization for bringing the opinions and interests of their clients to the attention of the legislators. It's a set of specialists who do the constitutionally guaranteed "right to petition the government for redress of grievances" for their clients - professionally as members of an organization of interested parties, or both.
Of course if the legislators are corrupt, lobby
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Bribes are for little people, quid pro quo over long periods is how the big boys do it.
Here is your old colleague in a high paying position asking you for a favor, he is not promising you anything, he's just serving as an example.
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They can offer, instead, more votes from the people whose interests the legislator is supporting - or at least not opposing.
In other words, bribes. Votes in today's hyper money-saturated politics are a form of currency. I seriously doubt that Dow can produce voters directly, based solely on huge numbers of people caring about their issues. Of course, I'm sure you'd respond that each of Dow's shareholders counts as a vote aligned with Dow's issues, but that's quite a stretch, based on the issues that voters actually care about. If I were a Congressman, and thought that's all a lobbyist was delivering in the form of 'votes', I
Re:Clearly anti-competive but no regulator concern (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they plan to combine two competing companies into one and then divide into three non-competing companies and they expect this to satisfy regulators? Are the regulators that corrupt?
That's a rhetorical question, right?
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Why would the three companies have to compete with each other? There are other very large companies in those businesses.
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Once the two are combined, they plan to split into three separate companies, consisting of agricultural chemicals, specialty products and materials, like plastics.
Despite the eventual breakup, the deal would undergo rigorous antitrust scrutiny for all three companies, particularly the agricultural chemicals company. Still, the companies did not expect that the deal would require much in the way of other divestitures to satisfy regulators’ concerns.
So, they plan to combine two competing companies into one and then divide into three non-competing companies and they expect this to satisfy regulators? Are the regulators that corrupt?
"Despite the eventual breakup, the deal would undergo rigorous antitrust scrutiny..."
Re:Clearly anti-competive but no regulator concern (Score:5, Informative)
Are the regulators that corrupt?
Regulators don't exist to prevent companies from getting big, they exist to prevent companies from anti-competitive practices. That is very much up to general market conditions, market power and the actions of a company. All of this is helped by the fact that their competitor after the merger-split will still be larger than they are.
So while yes, regulators are likely corrupt just like a politician is likely lying somewhere in the world right now, it doesn't actually have much to do with the situation at hand.
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Except that the plan is very similar to that of gerrymandering and telecom companies' regional "gentleman's agreements". Before the merger, there are two companies whose products overlap and therefore are currently in competition. After the merger there will be three companies whose products don't overlap, reducing competition in each of their product areas.
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My view is that huge businesses are directly a result of onerous regulation. The largest businesses have the economies of scale to deal with the overhead of regulation and the resulting corruption of regulators.
Want a competitive marketplace? Make it possible for small and medium scale businesses to thrive.
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Are the regulators that corrupt?
Absolutely. I expect this to sail through unless it rustles the jimmies of some other large corporation.
I think it's a good idea (Score:2, Interesting)
China, and the Arab nations, are in the process of building up their chemical industries. So, the two big american chemical companies will merge to keep up.
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So do you have a solution for the problems that will precipitate from this mixture? Or just a reaction? Perhaps you are just afraid that when these major elements of the chemical industry are compounded, that it will catalyze a reduction of competition?
Mixing stuff, then separating it again (Score:5, Funny)
Always has been the job of chemical companies, and always will be.
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In the absence of mod points, please view this as an endorsement of a fine, intelligent comment.
better living through chemistry (Score:2)
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Yeah, but it will save taxes that they would otherwise pay if they did spinoffs without first merging. (Because of some quirk in tax law that I don't understand)
In accordance with the standard model (Score:5, Funny)
The standard model does predict that a Dow/Dupont merged particle could exist, but it would have a very short half life, and will be observed by the three predicted decay companies.
Smell a rat anyone? (Score:1)
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At least for the materials (read plastics) company I don't expect much closures in NA. Natural gas is cheap in NA, and expensive elsewhere. Feedstock costs are far higher than labour in chemical plants. The agri-chem company on the other hand...