Today Syngenta announced that, for 43 billion dollars, it will be acquired by ChemChina.

Why is it bad news ?

1. because Syngenta management has no one ounce of courage to drive the company in an agribusiness that is not essentially different today as it was a few months or a few years ago.
   They (Chairman and CEO) were saying recently that to continue alone was no more an option (silly), and now they communicate, and we should believe this farce, that Syngenta will continue on the same course.
   First mistake of ChemChina: to maintain in place this incompetent tandem Chairman and CEO.
2. because concentration at that level is always cause for loss of substance, human before all.
   By the way: Maktheshim-Agan acquired in 2001 some products (propaquizafop, tau-fluvalinate) that had to be divested by Syngenta to satisfy European competition authorities. Now under the name of Adama it is owned majorly by ChemChina.
   A merger Syngenta-Adama will be the logical consequence, with re-sale of such products and other overlapping assets. Merger authorities will have to look into this, even if no formal merger will be -initially- announced.
3. even if it will be technically in private hands, Syngenta will become a foreign (and still marxist) state owned industrial company in Switzerland.
   Similar to Boshida-Swissmetal, but at another, gobal, level.
4. it is one more sign of an Occident giving away its industrial know-how for a few bank notes.
   Will shareholders, of course all liberal minded folks, receiving 480 francs per share from Chinese taxpayers, re-invest this money into virtual realities à la facebook or google, or are they interested in more fundamental industrial activities ?
   BTW: I have an excellent investment opportunity to offer, please call!

Soothing communiqués are no more gullible. Facts and deeds will count.

On verra !