Dow’s $1.1 Billion Sale of Brazil Corn Seed Business to CITIC Fund

Cleary Gottlieb is representing Dow Chemical Company in the sale of its corn seed business in Brazil to a Chinese fund owned by conglomerate CITIC Ltd.

The business is being sold to meet the requirements of Brazilian antitrust authorities (CADE) for Dow’s global merger with DuPont.

The value of the transaction is approximately $1.1 billion and includes the sale of seed processing plants and seed research centers, a copy of Dow AgroSciences’ Brazilian corn germplasm bank, the Morgan seed brand and a license for the use of the Dow Sementes brand for a certain period of time.

Closing is contingent upon CADE’s approval of the transaction.

Cleary has also been acting as antitrust counsel to The Dow Chemical Company in connection with the announced agreement, under which Dow and DuPont will combine in an all-stock merger of equals. The combined company will be named DowDuPont, and the combined market capitalization will be approximately $130 billion.