Speculation Continues on Aventis' Sale of CropScience

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--Today's Wirtschafts Woche, a weekly German business magazine, reported that Aventis (www.aventis.com) is ready to sell its CropScience division, based here, to German chemicals groups BASF and Bayer, as reported on Soyatech's Web site (www.soyatech.com). However, when Insider contacted Aventis for comment on the sale, spokesman John Abrams said, "There has been no sale, and there has been no announcement of a sale."

Speculation on the sale continues in the newswires because Aventis has been reviewing options for divesting its CropScience division since November 2000, a decision that was reached after an evaluation of corporate strategy for housing a pharmaceutical and crop science division within the same company. The result of the review was a choice to divest the CropScience division by the end of the year. Other options that are still on the table include an initial public offering (IPO), a merger or an outright sale of the division, although a trade-sale is still the most likely route Aventis will take.

In researching a sale of its CropScience division, Aventis has approached possible buyers, though no names have been officially released. The Wirtschafts Woche article stated that Juergen Dormann, Aventis chairman, held a meeting in Strasbourg on July 2, where the details of the pending sale were discussed. The weekly publication went on to say that the current plan for the CropScience division is to sell to Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer (www.bayer.com) initially, and then Bayer will sell the insecticides business to BASF (www.basf.com), with U.S. headquarters in Mt. Olive, N.J. In response to this, Abrams said, "One of [Aventis'] spokesmen from Strasburg was quoted in one of the newswires saying we are in negotiations with potential buyers, but we're not identifying who the potential buyers are, and there has been no actual sale."

Aventis is still considering all angles and plans to reach a decision pertaining to its CropScience division before 2002. Another matter that remains pressing for Aventis is the 24-percent say Germany's Schering AG has in the CropScience division. The near-quarter stake in CropScience dates back to the merger of Rhone-Poulenc and Hoechst in December 1999 that formed Aventis.

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