Agriculture

Nutty berry deal sows competitive seeds Down Under

28 May 2021

Battles like Blackstone’s for Crown, BetMakers’ for parts of Tabcorp and KKR’s for PEXA position Australia for a bumper year of contested M&A. Plentiful money and growth in buyers, bankers and bravado all play a role. A two-sided, 16-bid fruit-farm fight already portends excess.

Capital Calls: Airbus signals liftoff, Bill Gates

27 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: The global aircraft industrial complex got a boost after the European plane maker said it hopes to churn out more of its A320 short-haul workhorses per month than expected; Microsoft founder’s huge private investment vehicle under scrutiny.

Guest view: How companies can cut deforestation

20 May 2021

Yet more destruction of the Amazon last year raises climate-change fears. Former Brazil Finance Minister Joaquim Levy argues the key to ending this economically unsound treatment of rainforests lies in a mix of animal-tracing tech, integrated farming and better use of pastures.

UK-Aussie trade talks expose post-Brexit tangles

20 May 2021

Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to lower tariffs for goods from Down Under. A deal would bring only a little more growth, cost UK farm jobs, and set a benchmark for negotiations with others. It’s getting harder for Johnson to ignore the tradeoffs after leaving the EU.

EU’s new supply-chain stick delivers fair whack

16 Apr 2021

Germany and others plan to make firms liable for human rights and environmental abuses by suppliers. The financial gains derived from outsourcing justify the legal stretch. Scandal-wary giants like Nestlé already self-police their sourcing. Hefty fines are an added incentive.

DowDuPont activist legacy spawns new activism

21 Jan 2021

Starboard Value wants new directors and a new CEO at $33 bln Corteva. The seed and pesticide group is one of three born from the 2017 merger and later breakup of Dow and DuPont. That grand plan looked good on paper to other noisy investors, but making it work is proving hard.

India’s richest men become rural whipping boys

13 Jan 2021

New agricultural reforms will cut out middlemen and boost incomes, but some farmers are lashing out at businesses owned by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. Focusing on them is unfair, but the perception that the duo is taking over the economy makes them easy targets.

Russia’s wheat tax scrapes bottom of policy barrel

22 Dec 2020

Fiscal conservatism and administrative issues make it tricky for Moscow to support citizens via European-style furloughs. Its Plan B, a levy on wheat exports, is supposed to limit domestic food price inflation. But in doing so it will probably undermine a key Russian industry.

Hershey cocoa spat tests limits of investor ethics

4 Dec 2020

Ghana and Ivory Coast may stop selling sustainable beans to the Reese’s maker, accusing it of dodging payments for impoverished farmers. That could make it harder for the $31 bln group to flaunt its sustainability kudos. The snag is that so far shareholders don’t seem to care.

The Exchange: Eating worms is good for the planet

1 Dec 2020

Growing global demand for food is putting a squeeze on available land and one French startup says it has the answer: indoor insect farming. Ynsect co-founder Antoine Hubert on how growing mealworms for fertilizer will benefit the environment – and eventually our diets too.

Corona Capital: Cyber Friday and Monday

30 Nov 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Online holiday shopping hits new records.

U.S. farm aid bonanza is free market nightmare

2 Nov 2020

Farmers are receiving a record $50 billion in federal aid this year. Covid-19, trade and politics are partly to blame, but the bigger problem is too many uncompetitive farms. More handouts or price controls would further distort markets. Governments could help more by doing less.

Bayer’s dismal M&A harvest boosts breakup pressure

1 Oct 2020

The German drugs-to-seeds company’s shares collapsed after it said earnings will fall next year. On top of legal woes from the Monsanto acquisition, the crop science business has been hit by the virus, and tough competition. The case for separating its sickly units is growing.

Corona Capital: KKR, Rugby, Centene

12 Jun 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: KKR volunteers advisers to share the pain, Super Rugby heads back to the pitch, and Centene's best bet.

Corona Capital: Oil cheerleading, Mortgaging Ford

13 Apr 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: U.S. and Saudi energy ministers agree on pumping up oil, Ford may use an old trick to raise new capital.

Bayer settlement only slightly eases Monsanto pain

24 Jan 2020

The German chemicals group may spend $10 billion compensating alleged cancer victims of its acquisition’s Roundup weed killer. That would be better than CEO Werner Baumann’s worst fears. But it barely makes his ill-starred $66 billion deal look any better.

Trump’s trade war chases its own tail

16 Jan 2020

The U.S. president is hailing his agreement with China as a boost to farmers and manufacturing workers. It is, but only because they were the losers from trade conflict. Obama showed that following the rules doesn’t work; Trump has only shown that ripping them up doesn’t either.

China trade deal gives Trump a campaign win

15 Jan 2020

Beijing pledged to buy more U.S. goods and enforce intellectual-property rights. It has fallen short on similar promises in the past, and anyway the conflict was partly whipped up by the U.S. president. Still, he can tout the new “phase one” agreement as he seeks re-election.

Trump’s soybean dream can be crushed

8 Jan 2020

The U.S. president says China could soon buy as much as $50 bln in farm products from American farmers, including more of the oilseed. But the U.S. doesn’t have the beans, and Brazil’s currency offers a better value. The weakened U.S. agriculture trade could struggle to return.

Trump and Xi go back to square minus-one

13 Dec 2019

The U.S. president will gradually roll back tariffs while his Chinese counterpart has agreed to buy more U.S. crops. Tit-for-tat taxes are halted, not shelved, and thorny issues like forced tech transfers linger. It’s stability, but companies are worse off than when they started.