Agricultural trader Bunge Global SA is close to receiving a decision from Chinese antitrust authorities on its US$8.2 billion purchase of Glencore Plc-backed Viterra, according to people familiar with the matter, roughly two years after the bumper deal was first announced.
China’s approval – conditional or otherwise – is the last major hurdle in Bunge’s bid to create an agricultural commodities giant capable of competing with Cargill Inc. A verdict could come within days, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private.
The people cautioned that the decision had not yet been formalised by Beijing, and further delays were still possible.
Bunge, which has its corporate headquarters near St. Louis, Missouri, is the B in the so-called ABCD quartet of storied agricultural commodity trading firms that dominate crop markets. Its effort to expand with the purchase of rival Viterra has been tangled in trade tensions between the US and China, and the latest movement comes alongside trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing in London.
Bunge had initially planned to close the deal by mid-2024, and was approaching a Friday deadline that allows the parties to pull out of the agreement, according to regulatory filings. That limit has now been extended. The company also pushed out the expiration date of an offer to replace debt previously issued by Viterra from June 13 to July 3, it said in a filing Thursday.
Spokespeople from Bunge and Viterra said the companies were in the final stage of regulatory approval and thanked Chinese officials for constructive dialogue throughout the review process. China’s commerce ministry and the state administration for market regulation did not immediately reply to faxes seeking comment.
The company has already received key approvals in the European Union and Canada, where there were concerns about the impact on competition. Argentina has yet to weigh in, but antitrust laws in the South American nation allow for the deal to be completed, with any remedial action potentially being required later.
China has only blocked deals on rare occasions since its anti-monopoly law came to force in 2008, such as Coca-Cola Co.’s bid to buy China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd in 2009. Other deals caught in limbo as a result of trade tensions include chip-designer Synopsys Inc’s pending US$34-billion purchase of software developer Ansys Inc, one of the biggest acquisitions in recent years.
by Isis Almeida & Hallie Gu, Bloomberg
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