US CF Industries, Yara terminate merger talks

Mark Milam

16-Oct-2014

US CF Industries, Yara terminate merger talksHOUSTON (ICIS)–CF Industries (CF) along with fertilizer producer Yara International have terminated their discussions regarding a potential merger, the US fertilizer producer announced on Thursday.

In September, both companies had revealed discussions had commenced regarding the joining together to create an entity that would have a large stake in the global fertilizer business.

Yara would have gained a much larger presence in the US while CF would have earned access to the Norwegian company’s portfolio of crop nutrients, especially in volumes of ammonia but also with phosphate as well as other nitrogen fertilizers.

There had been speculation within the industry that the merger of equals would have accounted for 5% of the global urea market and more than one third of the global trade of ammonia.

CF CEO Tony Will said he appreciates the efforts by the management and directors of Yara and for their cooperation and professionalism. But despite having identified significant operational and structural synergies, both sides were unable to reach a full agreement on terms.

“CF Industries has a strong stand-alone business plan and we are confident in the material increase in our cash flow generation as our capacity expansion projects come on stream as scheduled. We remain fully committed to driving shareholder value creation by investing in high return projects while returning excess cash to stockholders through dividends and a substantial share repurchase programme,” said Will.

Yara had not issued a statement regarding the discontinuation of talks or commented on the decision.

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