Adama Delays Stock Offering

Adama, the Israeli agrochemical firm formerly known as Makhteshim Agan, has postponed a plan, announced last October, to raise funds through an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Adama had hoped to finance the $623 million purchase of a number of Chinese agchem businesses from its parent, ChemChina, through the IPO, which was to have taken place by the end of June. However, Adama revealed last week that because of adverse market conditions it will look at other options to finance the Chinese agchem purchase. Those options include an IPO at a later date and an offering on an exchange other than the NYSE. The IPO would have helped Adama acquire agchem businesses that together have annual sales of $850 million and would give the firm what it describes as “a state-of-the-art operational platform in China.” Combined with Adama, those operations would bring the Israeli firm’s sales to almost $4 billion annually and advance its goal of being the world’s largest supplier of off-patent crop protection chemicals.