Syngenta Elects New Board As ChemChina’s $43 Billion Deal Closes

Syngenta elects new board and Ren Jianxin, Chairman of China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina), was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Chen Hongbo, Chief Strategy Officer of China National Agrochemical Corporation (CNAC), Olivier T. de Clermont-Tonnerre, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer at China National Bluestar (Bluestar) and Dieter Gericke, partner at the law firm Homburger AG, were elected as new members of the Board of Directors.

Michel Demaré was re-elected to the Board; he will act as Vice Chairman and Lead Independent Director. Gunnar Brock, Eveline Saupper and Jürg Witmer were re-elected as Independent Directors.

Vinita Bali, Stefan Borgas, Eleni Gabre-Madhin and David Lawrence stepped down from the Board.

The decisions were made at the General Meeting of Shareholders of Syngenta AG held on June 26, 2017, the 16 shareholders representing 95.11% of the total share capital approved all the motions proposed by the Board of Directors.

ChemChina won conditional EU antitrust approval earlier in April for its $43 billion bid for Swiss pesticides and seeds group Syngenta, the largest foreign acquisition by a Chinese company and a deal that could help China improve its domestic agricultural output.

The deal is expected to reshape the agricultural chemicals and seeds market in the midst of fears of price rise on developing new herbicides and pesticides.