Hugh Grant, the CEO of Monsanto Co (NYSE:MON), expressed that their teams focus remains on their key two priorities, namely, offering their business objectives while working towards completion on the transaction to combine with Bayer. These business objectives comprise advancing their pipeline, a pipeline that leads the industry and also serves the industry via their broad licensing plan, and development in their sustainability commitments, as reported in their report from a few weeks ago.
The details
Monsanto CEO Mr. Grant talked about the Bayer merger during the earnings call. He stated that with Bayer directing the regulatory procedure, they continue to remain in tough with regulators, and they find progress, as projected. The antitrust permissions continue to increase, and they have now obtained about half of them.
Moreover, the CFIUS has closed its review, and there exists no unresolved national security issues. Overall, they continue to stay optimistic about their collective ability to get the needed approvals for the transaction in the early part of 2018. As they progress closer to the anticipated closure of the combination, their teams have kept their focus on the operations. They delivered robust first quarter performance with strong growth, led by Intacta soybeans in South America and enhanced pricing in glyphosate.
Monsanto added that their commercial teams have performed a remarkable job in offering today’s products to their consumers, while their technology teams continue to develop the products of tomorrow. In fact, 2017 posted a record count of pipeline advancements.
Their common products as well as flagship seed brands, ASGROW, Deltapine and DEKALB, had once again established yield advantages in soy, cotton and corn, while their latest platform, Climate FieldView, offered an impressive 17 developments, expanded geographically and included new licensees and partners, eventually offering more alternatives to more farmers across the globe. Grant added that the outlook for their latest technologies continues to be strong in the imminent period.
