Aventis to sell off rather than float CropSciences 

Reuters 3apr01

Aventis to sell off rather than float CropSciences PARIS, April 3 (Reuters) - Franco-German life sciences company Aventis has decided to sell off its CropSciences division and not seek a stock market listing, staff-management committee sources said on Tuesday.

Aventis management has sent its CropSciences sale proposal to three U.S. firms - Monsanto (NYSE:MON - news) DuPont (NYSE:DD - news) and Dow, and to two German firms - Bayer and BASF, they added.

"We should have a definitive decision at the end of June to allow us effectively to quit crop sciences at the start of 2002" the source told Reuters.

Aventis has ruled out dividing up CropSciences into parcels or selling it off by product.

Early in March Aventis estimated its CropSciences division would be valued at about seven times core earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), plus debt of about two billion euros.

CropSciences had 2000 EBITDA of 529 million euros before exceptional items - up 11.6 percent from 1999's level, suggesting an overall valuation of roughly 5.7 billion euros.

Quitting crop science, and also selling off its animal feed division, will allow Aventis to concentrate on its core pharmaceutical business following a shift in strategy announced five months ago.

A source close to Aventis also told Reuters on Tuesday that the sale of its animal feed division, announced last year, should be completed in May.

At the end of March, industrial sources said the sale would be for around 300 million euros and two investment funds - Bain Capital and CVC Partners - had expressed interest.

Aventis was formed a year ago from the merger of France's Rhone Poulenc with Germany's Hoechst.