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Biotech / Medical : Monsanto Co. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1473)	3/4/1999 7:59:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 2539

BASF Gets EU Approval to Buy 40% of Sweden's Svaloef Weibull [seed co.] Bloomberg News March 4, 1999, 6:02 a.m. ET Brussels, March 4 (Bloomberg) -- BASF AG, Germany's biggest chemicals and drugs maker, received European Union approval to buy a 40 percent stake in Swedish seed company Svaloef Weibull AB to expand its seed business. The European Commission, the EU's executive agency, said the acquisition, for which BASF hasn't disclosed the price, won't threaten fair competition in EU markets. BASF said Svaloef Weibull had sales of 257 million deutsche marks ($151 million) in 1997 and employs about 900 people. BASF and the Swedish company plan to set up a plant-biotechnology research operation, called BASF Plant Science, that will spend about 100 million marks a year on research. BASF is making acquisitions to increase its expertise in agricultural-biotechnology products and has said it will spend about 500 million marks on research in the field in the next three years, as it tries to compete better with rivals such as industry leader Monsanto Co. of the U.S. Svaloef Weibull, which is wholly owned by the Swedish farmers' cooperative Svenska Lantmaennen, said in January it had a 4.5 million-mark loss in 1997, and would post a smaller loss for 1998. The acquisition of the Svaloef Weibull stake reflects BASF's aim of becoming one of the top 10 plant-biotechnology companies, Friedrich Vogel, the chief executive of BASF's crop- protection unit, said in January. The commission can block or force changes to mergers between companies with combined global sales of 5 billion euros ($5.9 billion) and EU sales of 250 million euros each. --Alison Jahncke in the Brussels bureau (32 2) 285 4300 and