An agreement between fertilizer firm Agrium and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission will allow the Calgary company to go ahead and take up shares tendered to its bid for U.S. ag retailer UAP.
The FTC has accepted the agreement for public comment and given notice to Agrium that its required waiting period is now over under U.S. antitrust law, allowing the company’s friendly US$39 offer for all UAP shares to proceed, the company said in a release Thursday.
Agrium’s offer was set to expire midnight ET on Friday, marking the fifth time Agrium had extended its offer since it first announced its bid in December 2007.
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Agrium and UAP, which together plan to make Agrium the largest North American retailer of crop inputs and services, now have until Sept. 2 to complete a deal before they must go back to their boards of directors for approval of a new offer.
Colorado-based UAP runs about 370 distribution and storage facilities and three formulation plants, selling chemicals, fertilizer and seed to farmers, commercial growers and regional-level dealers across North America.
UAP’s Canadian wing, based at Dorchester, Ont., includes warehouses in B.C., Quebec and Ontario and product lines of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, nutrients, adjuvants, inoculants, growth regulators and other specialty products.
Agrium, which has had Canadian antitrust regulators’ approval of the takeover bid since January, struck an agreement last month with the U.S. FTC under which it will sell a total of seven of the two companies’ retail outlets.
UAP shares closed at US$38.96 Thursday on Nasdaq.
