MIDLAND , Mich., Dec. 11 (UPI) — American chemical companies DuPont and Dow Chemical Co. announced a $130 billion, all-stock merger on Friday.
Both sides are referring to the new company, to be established in the second half of 2016 pending regulators’ approval, as DowDuPont. Once joined, it will split into separate companies involved in material sciences, specialty products such as nutrition and health, and agricultural chemicals.
DowDuPont is a merger of equals, with shareholders of each company holding roughly 50 percent of the new one, and will form the world’s second-largest chemical company by revenue, after Germany’s BASF. DuPont, with 63,000 employees, said it expects about 10 percent of its workforce to be affected by layoffs due to the merger, and Dow, with 53,000 employees, said it expects a charge of $650 million before taxes to be recorded as employee separation costs.
“This transaction is a game-changer for our industry and reflects the culmination of a vision we have had for more than a decade to bring together these two powerful innovation and material science leaders,” Dow chairman and chief executive Andrew N. Liveris said in a statement.
Dow was founded in Michigan in 1897 to extract bromide from brine, and DuPont in Delaware in 1802 as gunpowder maker E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Together, their current revenue, worldwide, exceeds $90 billion.
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