Bayer CropScience acquires controlling stake in Pau Seeds, Inc.

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
December 10, 2002

Bayer CropScience has purchased controlling interest of Pau Seeds, Inc. as part of an effort to expand its research presence in the U.S. corn seed marketplace.

With the acquisition of Pau Seeds, Bayer CropScience will obtain four active breeding programs and three research stations. Pau Seed’s Boone, Iowa, headquarters facility includes two breeding programs and additional breeding programs are under way at research facilities in Olivia, Minnesota, and Brookston, Indiana. The company has 15 employees.

“The acquisition of Pau Seeds provides us an opportunity to partner Pau’s solid breeding program with our existing trait technology aimed at commercializing lines for the U.S. market,” said Scott Johnson, general manager of the company’s BioScience unit for corn/ soybean/rice in North America. “Until this point, Pau has been focused on providing germplasm for the European market.”

Within the US, some of Pau’s lines of seed are currently commercially available through Foundation Seed Companies. Bayer has held a minority stake in the company since 1999.

Under the agreement, French-based seed company Euralis Semences SA will retain a minority stake in the company. Euralis Semences SA remains a licensee of the Pau Seeds germplasm for its development in the Euralis European markets.

Bayer CropScience researches, develops, manufactures and sells a broad range of innovative crop science products for the crop protection, biotechnology and seed markets; the turf and ornamental and professional pest management markets; and the consumer lawn and garden markets. Bayer CropScience, with worldwide headquarters in Monheim, Germany, is a separate legal entity within the worldwide Bayer Group.

Bayer is an international, research-based group with core businesses in health care, crop science, polymers and specialty chemicals. It employs some 117,000 people throughout the world. In 2002 Bayer had sales of EUR 30.3 billion and net income of EUR 2.6 billion. The Bayer Group stock is a component of the DAX and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: BAY).

Company news release
5225

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